Lies Are Always Prettier Than the Truth
by boredouttamymind21
Summary: Starts right after 1x10. There will be a lot of mystery and drama. A few things that you will see: Someone gets amnesia from a terrible accident, someone keeps disappearing, someone almost ruins the mom's relationship, someone tries to destroy the entire Foster family. Oh, and NO ONE'S telling the TRUTH.
1. Chapter 1

**I obviously don't own The Fosters, the characters in it etc... **

It's 5am in San Diego, California, and Callie had just left Wyatt's, after having been denied a ride to Indiana. She was on her way to the closest bus stop, when she felt a car following her.

As soon as Wyatt pulled up, Callie had just gotten in without thinking twice about it. She was annoyed at him for just telling her to go home, but she wasn't going to refuse a free ride. She wasn't sure where she would end up or where she really wanted to go for that matter, but at this point she didn't care much. 'Anywhere but here,' she thought, 'Indiana would have to suffice for now.'

As soon as she sat down he drove off, slowly, like if he was waiting for her to jump up and say, 'Forget it. Turn back around. Take me home.' But that wasn't like Callie, and he knew it. Still he hoped that it would happen. She was stubborn. Once she made up her mind about something, it was almost impossible to change it.

Wyatt turned on the radio and hit his thumbs against the steering wheel to the beat of some rock song. He wasn't really trying to get lost in the song, but he was nervous. Finally he spoke up, "So, are you going to tell me why you're running away?" He glanced at her quickly and then back at the road.

"I'd rather not," Callie said nonchalantly. She had a billion things going on in her head at once. Wondering, _'did anyone notice yet? Would they even care? Is this really the right choice? What the hell am I doing?'_

"Seriously Callie? You have to give me something. What happened yesterday? I thought things were going good for you," said Wyatt, with a concerning voice.

"Nothing. I'm just doing what's best for everyone…I don't expect you to understand." '_Please, just shut up and drive. I knew I should have just taken the bus'_, she thought.

"Ouch. That hurt," Wyatt placed his hand on the left side of his upper-chest, on top of his heart, jokingly trying to lighten the mood.

Callie tried to fight back a laugh, and then went back to looking serious. "Trust me you wouldn't get it…" Then she mumbled, "I'm not even sure I get it." She started to fidget through her duffel bag, trying to distract herself by looking down, anywhere but Wyatt's face. She was looking for her phone, but then remembered leaving it behind. _Right_, she thought. _I wasn't going to let Steph and Lena just track me down with that stupid GPS bullshit._

Wyatt just looked at her unconvinced. "If you don't tell me what's going on, I'm calling Lena and Stef right now and I'm asking them for myself," he said while grabbing his phone from his pocket. She quickly snatched it away.

"What the hell, Wyatt! What's wrong with you! I thought I could trust you!" Callie answered angrily. Her face was turning red all of a sudden. Then, it suddenly went pale, from the fear of Lena and Stef coming to get her. She wasn't really scared of them. She had more fearful foster parents; but she was afraid of seeing the looks on their faces, seeing their disappointment. Hell, they sure had a lot to be disappointed about. The had the right to be disappointed about the kiss, disappointed about her lack of ability to explain the kiss, disappointed about her running away, disappointed about Callie leaving Jude…and so on. But she held back the tears, as best as she could.

"You can trust me. But you're obviously not doing that. If you trusted me you would tell me what's going on in your head right now. I thought we were better than that, Callie. It doesn't feel right just taking you across state lines, many state lines, just because you had a fight with your mo— "

"Brandon and I kissed," Callie said quietly, silently hoping that Wyatt didn't hear her.

Wyatt stopped talking for a second. "So? I already told you that you guys should go for it. You both like each other, and it's not like they're going to keep you, remember?"

"They were going to keep us. That's the problem. And I would have ruined everything for Jude. He's really happy there, Wyatt. I can't take that away from him, just because…" Callie stopped before she could get the words out. She knew that as soon as she said them, it would make everything all the more real. She had to refrain from saying it. She turned her gaze towards her window.

"Because what?"

"Because I love him." She said louder than she expected, still not making eye contact. Her eyes started to tear, and she wiped them quickly. _'Crying is a sign of _weakness' she forced herself to remember_. And Callie was not weak. Was she?_

"Jude would understand."

"No he wouldn't have." She turned around to look at Wyatt directly. "He saw the kiss, and he was so angry with me. I have never seen him look at me with so much anger in his eyes. He yelled at me and called me selfish… and he's right. My stupid actions could have caused him another family. I wasn't thinking about anyone but myself. I won't do that again. I'd rather die, that hurt him again," Callie said, with tears flowing in her eyes. She couldn't fight them back any longer. _I am weak,_ she thought.

"I…I didn't know. I'm sorry… But running away? Callie, you couldn't just talk to them about it?" Wyatt asked.

"And tell them what? 'Hey, sorry but you can't adopt me, because I'm in love with your son, and we kissed yesterday. But Oh wait, can you adopt Jude? And still let me live in your house?'" Callie stated sarcastically, and ended it with an eye roll.

"Yeah, I guess you're right, stupid idea. But not as stupid as saying 'Hey I left the state, violating my probation, and now I have a warrant for my arrest out, no home, and no family, "Wyatt replied, ending with the same eye roll, while letting out a soft laugh.

"They weren't my family! They were just another foster family I ended up with! It's not a big deal!" Callie said trying to convince herself more than Wyatt. "Look, I'm used to moving around a lot. This is no different. Besides I've run away before. I know how to survive out there," she lied. She never ran away before, but she wanted Wyatt to believe she knew more than she did. She had an idea, and she had thought of running away before, but the thought of leaving Jude always stopped her. She knew that this time, things were different. This time, Jude would have a safe home and a family who loves him. And even a big sister who could take her place.

"Callie, if they wanted to adopt you, don't you think that they'll miss you. That they'll be heartbroken by you leaving?"

"They'll get over it. They said it themselves; 'We are not in a position to offer Callie and Jude a home forever.' If it's just Jude, then they will. I've lightened their load. They no longer have to take in Jude and his old juvenile sister. Jude will be taken care of, and that's all that matters."

"Do you seriously believe that, Callie? I mean, if they even offered to adopt you then—"

"I honestly don't care about any of that right now!" she snapped. "I just want to forget about everything. Can you manage to not judge me for a long enough time, for me to get some rest?" Callie asked.

She turned to the side, trying to close her eyes. She wanted to sleep, but she had even more thoughts rushing through her mind. '_Would they be angry that I just left? Would Jude hate me forever? Would Brandon blame himself for me leaving? Would Jesus and Mariana even care? No, of course not. This wasn't her real family. Stef and Lena were only going to take her in out of pity. Jude was younger; he had time to gain their love. They were only taking her in, because she was with Jude. They'd all be fine without her. Who the hell wants to adopt a 16-year-old anyway._'

"Sure," Wyatt replied. He didn't want to push her to talk too much. He knew if he did, she would jump out of the moving car, to keep the conversation from going on, or clam up even more. But deep down inside, he got a bad feeling.


	2. Chapter 2

Lena woke up to the sounds of birds chirping at 10 am. Most of the time, she would be annoyed by their incessant need to wake the entire world up for no good reason, but she wasn't today, considering she had just married the love of her life less than 24 hours ago. She gazed at her wife in awe. Stef was sleeping along side her, with her hand placed on her pillow with her new wedding ring on her finger. Lena looked down at her own ring and smiled and looked back at Stef.

Stef somehow felt she was being stared at and opened her eyes slowly.

"Morning." Lena offered her a comforting smile.

"Was I snoring?" Stef said while letting out a short laugh.

"No, no," I was just thinking."

"About what, love?"

"About how lucky we are… I mean we're married now and have 5 beautiful kids. It's just…"

"Just what?" Stef asked.

"I just can't believe it," she said while kissing her wife in the lips.

"Well believe it, babe," Stef replied while grabbing some clothes from the floor and putting them on. "Well, you can stay here and wait till reality catches up on you, while I'll go fix breakfast," Stef said, while leaning over and giving her wife another kiss.

"Will do."

After Stef finished making breakfast, she walked up the stairs and knocked on the Jesus's and Jude's door first. She knew they were the hardest to wake. She'd have to knock at least twice to get them to budge. She then knocked on the girl's. "Hey, wake up! Breakfast is ready!" she yelled. She turned back to Jesus's and Jude's door and knocked harder. "Wake up, sleepyheads! Breakfast!," And lastly knocked on Brandon's. With that she walked back down the stairs.

Lena walked down the stairs first. "Whoah, you really out did yourself this time," she glanced over the ridiculous amount of food her wife had made. A few minutes later, Brandon, Jesus, and Jude, come downstairs.

"Morning my babies. Everything's on the table except the juice. Brandon, can you get the juice from the fridge?" Stef asked before she took a seat next to her wife.

"Sure."

"Where are your sisters?" Stef asked. "Mariana, Callie, come on!" She yelled from the kitchen.

Seconds later, Mariana emerged from upstairs, "Hey, where's Callie?" She asked as if Callie would already be downstairs, while scratching on her now healing nose from the piercing.

"She wasn't sleeping in her bed?" Lena asked.

"No, if she was I wouldn't have come down and asked 'Hey, where's Callie?'" Mariana replied annoyed. She quickly regretted her attitude with her mother, but it went unnoticed or ignored by both of her mothers.

"Did you check the bathrooms?" Lena asked, as she placed two blueberry pancakes on Jude's plate.

"I just came out of the one upstairs," Mariana said.

"Callie?" Stef called, while walking to the other bathroom, which she could now see was vacant. "Hmmm…"

"Maybe she went out for a bit, or to Wyatt's?" Jesus said. Brandon looked at him annoyed at the mention of Wyatt's name. He still didn't want him anywhere near Callie, especially after their kiss.

"CALLIE!" Stef called even louder. "It's not like her to leave without asking. She knows the rules."

"Maybe she didn't want to wake you guys," Jesus replied.

"No. She would have at least left a note. Callie!" Stef started to run upstairs and Jude followed her. She looked in the girl's room and saw no one.

She started to walk out, when Jude opened Callie's drawers. They were empty.

"She's gone, she ran away!" Jude said angrily.

Stef paused and turned around to look at Jude. She too saw the empty drawers. "Lena!" She didn't want to believe it. She quickly grabbed her phone from her pocket and dialed Callie's number, while noticing Jude beginning to cry.

Suddenly, she started hearing Callie's ringtone. She followed the sound, and saw the phone buried under the pile of blankets on the bed. "Damn it!"

Lena started running up the stairs, "What happened? What's wrong?"

"Callie's gone," Stef could barely get the words out of her mouth. Lena noticed Stef's veins beginning to show in her face. She was angry, and with good reason.

"What do you mean gone?"

"I mean gone," she pointed to the empty drawers and Jude, who was now just sitting on the floor next to the dresser.

"She can't be gone. Why would she be gone? We just told her we wanted to adopt her two days ago. She's probably out with Wyatt or something. Did you try her cell?" Lena asked, trying to rationalize all of this, more so trying to calm her wife and Jude.

Stef raised Callie's cell phone, so that Lena could see. "Brandon!" Lena called.

Seconds later Brandon runs up the stairs and into the girls' room.

"Do you have Wyatt's number?" Lena asked.

"I think so." He had to switch phone numbers in science class, with someone he was sitting next to, which happened to be Wyatt. "But he moved to Indiana, I think. Why? What's wrong?" Brandon asked.

"Just give me the number!" Stef snapped. Brandon's face went blank. She didn't mean to snap at her son. She was just so angry and worried that the words came out wrong. She didn't want to have to explain all of this to her son before knowing what exactly it was she would have to explain.

"We'll fill you in, in a second, Brandon," Lena voiced calmly.

Brandon nodded and went to his room to look for his phone. Stef tried to search Callie's phone for the number, but she had the phone locked, and Stef wasn't about to waste time trying to figure out the passcode.

"Do you see a note?" asked Lena, scanning the room with her eyes.

"No," Stef's face began to go red, as she pressed her lips together tightly.

"Good. If she didn't plan on coming back, she would have at least left a note." With that thought she walked out of the girl's room and into Jesus's and Jude's room. She scanned Jude's side, looking for a note, and saw nothing.

Brandon came back to Stef, phone in hand, already dialing Wyatt's number. Stef put the phone to her ear, and waited impatiently for the phone to stop ringing and for Wyatt to answer. "Hey it's Wyatt—

"Wyatt, it's Stef—"

"…can't get to the phone right now. You know what to do."

"God damn it! Got his voicemail." Stef tried to calm down enough to leave a voicemail. "Hey Wyatt, it's Steph, Callie's mom. Is Callie with you? Please call me back as soon as you get this. This is very important," Stef said with the sound of defeat in her voice. She quickly pressed end and tried to call again. Her eyes were starting to tear more and more as the rings were going unanswered. Lena tried to put hand on Stef's arm, but she quickly jerked away, as if by allowing Lena to comfort her, she would lose all her concentration. Lena knew better than to take it offensively. Her wife was angry at the moment, and she knew that the best thing was to let her be.

"Hey what's going on?" Mariana asked Brandon. They were all so distracted that they didn't hear Mariana coming up the stairs.

"Callie's missing," Brandon replied. He too had tears forming in his eyes.

Lena walked out to the hallway. "We're going to find her. She won't be missing for long. Do either of you have any idea where she might be?" Lena asked with some hope in their eyes.

"I guess with Wyatt," Mariana replied. She couldn't think of anywhere or anyone else. Callie mainly just hung around the house or with Wyatt.

"He moved to Indiana," Brandon replied wondering why his sister didn't know this.

"What? No way! We just saw him th —"

"I think he just left."

"Why the hell would Callie just up and leave like that? And leave Jude? I think you guys got it all wrong. She's probably just went out for a bit."

"Mariana," Lena spoke. "Her clothes are gone. She ran away. But your mom and I are going to do everything we can to find her, ok? We'll let you know as soon as we hear anything." The reality was starting to sink in for the first time, for Mariana. She stood there, mouth open in all, staring at her mother. She walked into her bedroom and saw Stef pacing the room, with Brandon's cell held up to her ear. She noticed Jude now lying on Callie's bed, crying for his sister.

Mariana knelt down next to the bed. "Hey Jude. Don't cry. Moms are going to find her. We all are going to look for her, and we will find her. But we need your help. You know the most about her and you know how she thinks better than all of us, right?"

Jude looked at Mariana, quickly trying to wipe away his tears with his fingers. "I guess…Maybe she's at the park," Jude said with some hope in his eyes.

"Okay, we'll try there. Hurry. Go put on some warmer clothes so we can go to the park." With that, Jude left to his room."

Jesus can up the stairs, "Hey, what are you guys doing, leaving me with all that food by myself," he said while laughing. "Any longer and you're all going to have to wait till lunch."

Mariana grabbed her brother's shoulder and pushed him aside, so she can talk farther away from Jude. "Callie's AWOL."

"What?" Jesus replied louder than needed. "Are you sure?"

"Yes I'm sure," Mariana replied with sarcasm. "She packed up all her stuff and bounced."

"Whoah, that's crazy? Where do you think she went?" Jesus said with some concern, now that reality set in.

"I dunno. Me and Jude are going to check the park, and we'll go by some other places Callie hangs out at."

"She's not going to be there," Jesus said. "When did she leave?"

"I don't know, sometime last night or early this morning." Mariana said looking downward, starting to feel guilty about the whole situation. _Callie had to walk right past her. How had she managed to stay asleep through all of that? Callie must have had to open a ton of drawers, the closet, and maybe even turned on the light, and she didn't hear a sound. _She started to blame herself.

Jesus noticed and grabbed her chin and held it up to him. "This isn't your fault." He loved his sister and he couldn't take seeing her sad, especially when it was about something that she had no control over. "We will find her ok, I promise." Jesus said the words without even thinking, and it was too late to take it back. He always felt overprotective over his twin sister, and he would do whatever it took to get his sister to feel better, even if it was to tell her a lie. Deep down he honestly thought, if Callie didn't want to be found, she wouldn't.


	3. Chapter 3

Mariana and Jude walked to the park after both moms reluctantly agreed to let them go. They didn't want Jude to get his hopes up, but he told them that he was going to look for his sister with or without them.

Mariana and Jude were power walking. Jude wanted to run, but Mariana wasn't up for it, and had to remind him a bunch of times on the way to slow down. The park wasn't far, which was why they had decided to walk. Mariana thought of asking Brandon to drive, but he seemed to be out of his element, and Mariana didn't want to bother. Once they reached a point where they could see the park, there was no stopping Jude. He ran to the opening of the fence that surrounded the park. Mariana chased after him.

Jude looked around, and even ran to check inside the kid's playground. But Mariana already knew Callie wouldn't be there. She turned around to scan the area for a second, and then turned back around to look for Jude, but she didn't see him. "Crap," she muttered to herself, running toward the jungle gym. "Jude!" Her heart began to race, as she climbed the small purple stairs to the top and into the fort. She calmed down as soon as she saw him.

Jude was crying hysterically. Hitting the plastic yellow walls with his fists. Mariana grabbed his hands and tried to calm him down by making shushing noises. "It's okay. We're going to find her."

"No we won't. And it's all my fault!" Jude snapped while lunging his fists at her. But she was stronger than he was and held his arms to his side.

"This is no one's fault," she said, realizing what she was saying all of sudden. "Especially not yours."

"No! I yelled at her! And she hates me now and left me," he stopped trying to fight her and let her hold him.

"No she doesn't. Me and my brothers yell at each other all the time, and I don't hate them." She put her finger to her chin and thought about it for a split second.

"Did you ever call them selfish for trying to mess stuff up with your new family. Did you ever tell them that they don't think about anyone but themselves."

Mariana pretended to think. "Probably… Why did you call Callie selfish, Jude?" Being nosy was in Mariana's nature.

Jude looked up at Mariana. He wanted to tell her, but he was afraid of what would happen if he said something. He didn't want to get Callie in trouble for when she came back, and he was afraid of getting sent to another foster home. "I can't tell you."

"Did you promise to keep it a secret?"

"No," Jude replied tilting his head.

"Than you can trust me. I promise I won't tell anyone, okay." Mariana cared for the boy, and she knew that he would just keep blaming himself if he didn't tell someone.

"Okay… I was mad at her, because she always gets us both sent away. She always does something and I have to get punished for it too. It's not fair!"

"It doesn't sound fair… but what did she do?"

"… I saw Brandon and Callie kissing," he mumbled.

"You saw what?" Mariana asked not sure if she heard him right.

"They were kissing! And if your mom's find out, they'll send us both away…But now it doesn't matter anymore, because Callie's gone, and I don't want to be here anymore." Jude started to cry.

Mariana was taken aback and didn't know what to do or say. She wasn't equipped to handle these types of problems. "Umm… Relax they wouldn't do tha—"

"You can't tell them!" Jude snapped, pushing Mariana out of the way. He began glaring at his foster sister, which surprised her and scared her at the same time for some reason.

"Relax. I won't tell. You can trust me. And you can't go anywhere, because when Callie comes back home, she's going to need you, and you won't be there for her if you leave to the middle of nowhere."

Jude didn't reply at all. Mariana thought, _what the hell have I gotten myself into? _And they both began to walk back towards the house.

Once they opened the front door, everyone jumped up from their seats to check who it was. "Just us," Mariana called, and their looks of hope began to fade away again. "Any luck?"

Jesus responded first, "Nope. That idiot Wyatt doesn't know how to answer the stupid phone! All that hairspray must be messing with his head."

"Jesus," Lena tried to scold, but she didn't have the energy. Mariana could tell she had been crying and god knows what else.

Mariana walked Jude inside, "Keep an eye on him, if you catch my drift," Mariana said pointing to Jude. Stef and Lena both looked at each other, even more worried about Jude now. "Brandon can I talk to you," Mariana said pointing upstairs. The mothers were too busy talking to Jude to notice Mariana ask to talk to Brandon.

Brandon followed Mariana upstairs and into Brandon's room." She gestured for him to walk in, and he looked at her strangely as she locked the door.

"Are you freaking kidding me," she managed to whisper, while yelling at the same time.

"What?" He already knew what, but he wasn't going to volunteer any information to her unless he absolutely had to."

"Don't what me! You and Callie! Seriously?" she said while slapping her lap in frustration. She managed to still keep her voice to a whisper.

"I know. I know it was wrong, but I couldn't help myself. I care about her a lot." Brandon put his head down and managed to have the same look on his face that Mariana did just an hour and a half earlier, when she was talking to Jesus. "I was about to tell Moms everything."

"No! Absolutely not!" Mariana said, her voice getting louder, as she held her hand up to her mouth, as an attempt to calm down.

"What do you mean? They have to know. They are so confused and it's my fault." Brandon began walking back over to his door. "I have to tell them before—"

"The hell you are!" Mariana slammed the door back shut. "You are going to mess everything up even more!" Her hand went up in the air and she began using a lot of hand movements. "Que carajo te pasa?" (Translation: What the hell is wrong with you?) "Jude could get sent back. He already wants to go because Callie's gone. You telling them this is just going to make things all the more worse! And Jude's definitely going to leave, before he gets sent away."

Brandon looked at her in shock. "Moms wouldn't do that!"

"To you maybe… You're biologically related. This could really mess things up betw—" Brandon's shaking of his head made Mariana pause. "You wouldn't get it. They would never send you away!"

"They wouldn't do that to any of us," he said while finally opening the door after much refusal from Mariana.

"If you do this and it goes wrong, I'm never going to forgive you," Mariana said with tears in her eyes. He turned away from her and walked down the stairs. She quickly followed him.

They were met by Stef's eyes as they reached the bottom. "Everything all right?"

_Damn, she must have heard the door slam_ Mariana thought. Or maybe her eyes gave them away.

Brandon looked back at Mariana. She was staring at him with pleading eyes, and thankfully for her Steph didn't notice. "Can I talk to you and Lena for a sec.. It's important," Brandon asked. Mariana grunted.

"Sure babe," afraid herself of what she was going to hear. The last thing she wanted was more bad news.

**Please review. I would like to have some type of feedback as to how I'm doing and what I can do to improve. I'm writing for you readers, so telling me what you might like to see would help. And I know… Not a lot of mystery yet. Except for the whole Callie's gone missing thing. But don't worry. I will definitely make sure to incorporate more of that soon. Thanks for reading.**


	4. Chapter 4

Brandon, Stef, and Lena took a walk outside to their back porch. All three sat down, and Brandon began fumbling with his hands on top of the table. Both moms knew that there was something bothering him. "What's wrong, B?" Stef asked.

"Umm…" Brandon was looking for the right words. He glanced up to the kitchen window and saw Mariana staring at them, with sad eyes of course. Her words suddenly replaying in his mind, '_Jude's going to get sent away. You don't understand. You're biologically related_.' God, he hated her for saying those words, but not more than he hated himself more for thinking of them, especially at this exact moment. They were replaying over and over like a broken record. "So, Jude might have hinted to Mariana that he might be wanting to run away too, to be with Callie."

Lena and Stef let out the breath they were both holding for what felt like a lifetime. Lena spoke first, "We've already talked to Jude about this. He knows that we are going to do everything we can to find her, and that we will be very devastated if he left." She sounded so casual to the revelation.

Brandon nodded in understanding. "Is that it, B?" Stef asked.

Brandon took a second. "Umm… Callie and I…" He looked up from his hands to his mothers, and quickly wished he could click rewind on what he had just said.

"Callie and you, what?" Lena asked, finally showing some curiosity.

He let out a small cough. "Callie and I were really close, and I wanted to know if there was anything I can do to help." _Crap, crap, crap! _He thought to himself. _You were this close and now you chicken out!_

"Can you think of any reason why Callie would have been unhappy? Why she left?" Stef asked, trying to find some type of logic in all of this. "I mean… you guys hung out a lot, so I thought you might have known of something we didn't."

"Did she not like it here?" Lena asked, instinctively.

"I…" Brandon looked into Lena's eyes. "I really don't know," he lied. _There was you're last chance, genius, and you blew it. _"I'll go check the school, and the beach. "

"Yes, that sounds like a good idea. Mom and I might not be here when you get back, but we're leaving money on the counter for dinner. Call us if you find her?" asked Lena.

"Sure."

Brandon left the back porch, leaving the moms still no closer than before to finding Callie. Lena reached over the table for Stef's hand.

"What do we do, love?" asked Stef. She had finally calmed down a little after the whole fiasco that had occurred only a few hours earlier. She was trying her best to be calm for the rest of her family, but she knew that was mostly Lena's job.

"Maybe, we should call Bill."

"No!" Stef scared her wife a little by the sudden snap. Stef noticed Lena's face and quickly regretted her reaction. "Calling Bill could get her in more trouble than she needs. She's on probation, and if they find out she left the state, then—"

"Then what?" Lena didn't think she could get any more worried than she already was.

"Then she can get sent back to juvie."

Lena's heart sank. She remembered the day that they first met Callie, and couldn't get her bruised face out of her mind. "And if we don't? Then what? Huh? Jude will be taken from us for negligence, for not reporting Callie missing?" Her voice depicting the anger she was suddenly feeling.

It was Stef's turn to be the calm one. "Look, all I'm saying is that we shouldn't go rushing off to call Bill, if there is a chance we might find her. Let's just take this slow, can we please?" Stef was upset over Callie running away, but she knew she still had to do everything in her power to protect all of her kids right now. And breaking them all apart was definitely not part of that. She put her hand on her wife's shoulder to comfort her, but deep down inside, she knew that she was the one who needed the comforting. She couldn't even understand her own feelings. She was angry, sad, and scared at the same time. _How the hell did we get here_, she thought.

"Moms!" Lena and Stef both turned around to Brandon's yell, coming from the front of the house.

They quickly got up and ran over to the front, Lena falling a little shorter behind Stef. Brandon was standing in front of Lena's car, with his jaw open in shock.

"What, Brandon?" Stef asked first.

He quickly gestured toward the car. Lena and Stef both took a good look and quickly saw what he was referring too. Stef bent over to look at each of the tires that had slashes through them, and were thus all flattened. "What the hell?" Stef asked herself.

"Who would do this?" Lena asked, while walking over to Stef's car, and noticing all four of those tires slashed as well.

None of this made any sense to them, and it sure didn't keep Stef as calm and collected as she had been just a minute ago. "Get in the house, Brandon!"

"No, but—"

"GET IN THE HOUSE NOW!" Stef snapped, turning towards her son. He knew better than to test her right now, so he made his way towards the house. She watched her son go inside and quickly scanned around her. She noticed a piece of paper taped onto the window shield of her car and eyed it suspiciously….

**Dun. Dun. Dun. Okay, trying to add a little more crazy to an already crazy situation. Kind of impressed myself a little with the idea. (Don't worry, the note isn't going to be from –A, to the **_**Pretty Little Liars fans :p) **_**Wanted to do something a little different than the rest of the stories I've read on here. Please review, and I'm open to any ideas for future chapters. Thanks for reading**


	5. Chapter 5

After hours of driving, Wyatt was getting incredibly tired, considering he had woken up so early that morning and had been driving nonstop. He and Callie stopped at a nearby diner to get some coffee and eat something.

"Where are we?" She asked while waking up and rubbing her eyes. She was squinting her eyes, at a building sign she could barely read.

"Aguila, Arizona. Come on, I'm really hungry and I have to use the bathroom."

As soon as they walked in, a snotty-looking waitress took one look at them, and eyed them in disgust. What appeared to be her manager appeared next to her and she quickly shifted her attitude. A fake smile appeared, "Just 2?"

"Yeah," Wyatt answered.

"Right this way." The smile disappeared as soon as she started towards a booth. They followed far behind her. "bitch," Wyatt mumbled, which made Callie laugh. After they were seated and given their menus, Wyatt rushed to the bathroom. Before Callie looked at the menu, she dug into her jean's pocket, to count however much money she had. _Great… a whole $16.85, that should last me a lifetime, _she smirked. _I knew I should have gotten a job._

While Wyatt was in the bathroom, he finally looked at his phone. 14 Missed Calls, all from an unknown number. He had 6 voicemails. He quickly dialed to check them and listened to the first message: "Hey Wyatt, it's Stef, Callie's mom. Is Callie with you? Please this is very important. Please call me back as soon as you get this." He could hear the worry in her voice, and he knew how the other messages were going to sound. "Wyatt, it's Stef again, calling to find out if Callie's with you. She still hasn't come home yet and we're really concerned," her voice was shaky "please call me back, even if she's not with you. Just let us know, okay." The third voicemail: "Wyatt, it's Lena. I need to know if Callie's with you, or if you know of somewhere she might be. Please, this is very important and we need to speak with her. She's not in any trouble, we just want to make sure she's alright." He couldn't listen to any more, he quickly tried to call the number back, but the call didn't go through. He took a look down on his phone and saw he had no bars. "No freaking service. Unbelievable," he muttered to himself, as shoved the phone into his back pocket.

As soon as he came back out, Callie already had the menu closed in front of her. She was gazing out of the window, obviously daydreaming, because there was nothing there. "Decided what you wanted?"

"I already told you what I wanted. Stop trying to get me to change my mind." Callie seemed annoyed by his constant doubting of her decision.

"I meant food-wise." Wyatt couldn't help but smile as he moved his hair out of his face and sat down across from her. _Why are chicks so crazy?_ he thought to himself.

"Oh yeah," Callie was embarrassed, now, "that… I'm getting a the chicken soup." She wasn't in the mood for soup, but it was the cheapest thing on the menu at $2.95. _I should have taken some food with me before I left_, she couldn't help but think. _Too late now._

"What? Callie, who knows when we're going to stop and eat again? Get something else You have to eat something heavier. I'm buying so don't worry about it." Callie tried to protest but he ended up ordering a burger and fries for her anyways. "You have to eat it or I'm shoving it down your throat," he joked.

Halfway through her meal, she looked up to see that Wyatt had only taken a bite out of his burger and seemed to be slowly nibbling on his fries. "You have to eat it or I'm shoving it down your throat," she reiterated his words back to him, with a smile on her face.

He didn't smile back though. It was obvious his mind was elsewhere. "Hello?" Callie attempted to get his attention, by waving her hand in front of his face.

He looked up at her, with a depressing look on his face. "You know your family called me a bunch of times and left me a few voicemails."

Callie looked surprised for a second. Then, a sudden anger rushed over her. "Did you call them back!" She looked as if she were about to grab her jacket and run out of the diner, already assuming his response. _Forget the duffel bag,_ she thought.

"No," he said, leaving out the fact that he tried but there was no service. "But they are really scared Callie. You have to at least call them and let them know you're okay."

Callie thought about it, "Umm… I will do it a little later. But only to tell them that I'm fine. I can't go back."

Wyatt nodded. _Better than nothing._


	6. Chapter 6

Stef grabbed the note and quickly opened it. Something was written on it, with a sharpie in sloppy handwriting, but it was still legible.

**You won't find her. **

**We'll get her first.**

**I'd stay home if I were you.**

Stef scanned the area again with her eyes to find whoever wrote this note. Her eyes showed fear, which was why Lena came over and grabbed the note from her.

She read it a few times, not believing the words that were in front of her eyes. "What?" She asked in confusion. Who would write something like that?"

Stef grabbed the note and walked quickly into the house. She saw all 4 kids sitting in different areas of the living room, and Jesus was trying to comfort Jude. "Which one of you wrote this?" she asked with obvious fury showing in her face.

"Wrote what?" Mariana asked first, while grabbing the note from Stef's hand. Absolute confusion revealed on her face. "Oh my God."

Brandon stood up read the note from Mariana's hand while squinting, silently trying to find out who wrote it. "Not me," he offered.

Stef and Lena's gaze turned towards Jesus and Jude. Both had their arms crossed waiting for their answer. Brandon handed them the paper. "Nu-uh. Definitely not me," Jesus said. Jude denied writing it as well.

"Someone better tell us the truth, or everyone's grounded," Lena responded. And all the kids looked at each other.

"None of us would do something like that or write something like this," Mariana piped up, while pointing to the piece of paper. Brandon had obviously mentioned the tire-slashing situation to them, as soon as he walked in the house.

The mom's looked at all four of them once again.

"We've all been right here the entire time! The cars were fine and there wasn't any note, when me and Jude got back."

"No one moved?" Lena asked, in an effort to make sure.

"No one except you three," Jesus said, while pointing to both Mom's and Brandon. He was suddenly giving them an accusing look.

"Go upstairs, please," Stef asked so that she and Lena could talk alone.

All four kids marched up the stairs in a line. As soon as they were alone, Lena and Stef walked into the kitchen.

"What does this mean?" Lena asked. "Do you think, maybe Callie…"

"No, love. She wouldn't do something like this." Stef couldn't believe it. First Callie ran away, and now someone is threatening her family, and Jude is still a whole other problem. Stef placed her hands on the counter, leaning away from it. "We can't report it, without explaining the note. And we still have to find Callie." She let out a deep sigh. I'm calling Mike."

Lena nodded in agreement. Mike wasn't her favorite person in the world, but right now she wasn't in a position to deny anyone's help.

Upstairs, all three siblings were trying to figure out who wrote the note. Jude accused Brandon. "It had to be you! You are the only one who wouldn't want to find Callie. You don't want them finding out about what you did!"

"Bud, it wasn't me. I want them to find Callie, same as you."

"I doubt that!" Jude left the hallway and ran inside Jesus's and his' room. Brandon walked to his own room and slammed the door shut.

"What's there problem?" Jesus asked. Mariana looked towards the stairs and then back at the other rooms. She grabbed Jesus by the arm and dragged him into her room, closing the door behind her.

Jesus just gave her a weird look.

"Look, don't tell, but…Callie and Brandon kissed." The last words came out of her mouth a little too quickly.

"Come again?"

"You heard me. Don't make me say it again."

"What the heck is wrong with him?"

"Right? That's what I said," Mariana responded finally agreeing with her brother on something.

"Wait… When did this happen?"

"What does that matter?" Mariana crossed her arms and gave Jesus a dirty look.

"Because if it was before Mom's told them they were going to adopt them, then it's okay," Jesus said while shrugging his shoulders.

"What?" Mariana gave Jesus a disapproving look.

"I mean, if they didn't know Callie and Jude were going to get adopted, then they can't get in trouble, right?"

"Are you being serious with me right now?" Mariana thought Jesus was joking for a second.

"No. Moms can't hold them responsible for the kiss, if no one had any idea about the adoption."

"I can't believe you. Jesus! They. Were. GOING. To. Be. Brother. And. Sister." Mariana spoke each word very slowly while holding Jesus's hands in hers, so that Jesus would finally understand the seriousness of the situation.

"I. Know. That. But maybe they didn't know that before they kissed." Jesus thought Mariana was being too dramatic over the whole thing, like always.

"Well, it doesn't matter because if Mom's find out, all hell is going to break lose."

"You want me to keep this from them?"

"Nooo… I told you 'Don't tell anyone' because I wanted you to run downstairs and write it on the walls in big black lettering. That's exactly what I wanted you to do." Mariana couldn't help but be sarcastic towards her brother. He was pissing her off right now.

"They can tell when I'm lying."

"Well here's a tip: DON'T MAKE IT OBVIOUS."

"Is that why Callie left?"

"Yeah I think so…" Mariana looked down "And Jude might have yelled at her for it."

"Damn. That sucks. So what do we do now?"

"We do nothing. YOU DO NOTHING."

"What about the psycho that wrote the note? How do they know Callie is missing? Do you think they took her?" Jesus started to look worried.

"I don't know. I doubt it. I mean, they said something like they were going to find her before we do. They wouldn't say that if they already had her."

"Or maybe they said that so that we'd think they didn't have her…" Jesus just stared at Mariana. He was having fun playing this game.

"No more C.S.I. for you. Moms will find out who wrote the note. Or at least Stef will…." Silently Mariana mumbled, "I hope they do."


	7. Chapter 7

Mike was at the bar on his 4th shot of Hennessey, when heard his cellphone's ringtone. He was feeling extremely depressed after the wedding and couldn't help but drink. He thought he was finally over Stef, since it had been over 10 years. But, the wedding brought him right back to the day Stef had ended it with Mike and told him the truth about her sexuality. If he had known how he was going to feel, he wouldn't have shown up. But, as soon as his phone lit up with her name, he reached for it and answered, "Hello, Stef?"

"Mike, I'm sorry to bother you, but I need your help with something right now. It's urgent."

"What wrong?" he asked while lowering his shot glass and showing some concern.

"I'll explain everything when you get here, but I need to borrow your car, and I need you to watch the kids for a bit. And bring your gun… please." Stef's voice was low, but still audible.

"My gun! For what?"

"Something happened that I will explain more about later. How soon can you get here?" Stef already knew Mike would say yes. Not because of the whole gun thing, but because he never said no to her.

"15 minutes." He hung up before she could respond. He put the unfinished shot back on the table.

As soon as Mike arrived, Stef told him about the "dilemma" they were having, and that they couldn't contact the police just yet. Fortunately for Mike, nobody could tell that he had just had a few drinks, thanks to some eye drops, a Listerine strip, and a cup of coffee. He agreed to stay with the kids, and keep a close eye on Jude and the house.

Stef and Lena were out driving looking for Callie, and it had begun to rain hard. Mariana gave them the address of Wyatt's abandoned house, and they had no such luck there. Afterwards, they searched the school grounds, but she obviously wasn't there.

They went back to the car, unsure of where to check next.

"Where the hell is she?" Stef said in an angry voice from the drivers seat, surveilling the area.

"I have no idea," Now, they were just driving down every street in the neighborhood. "Stef, what if we don't find her?" Lena asked.

"Don't talk like that. We're going to find her! We have to. I mean… she has no money. How far can she go?"

"What if she took a bus? Let's go check the station and ask around."

"Good idea," Stef replied.

It was getting dark, and they had been searching for Callie all day at the station. They went back to Mike's car and decided to go back to home and try again tomorrow.

Feeling defeated, Lena thought, _She must have passed by all of our bedroom doors and down the stairs, on her way out. Why didn't I wake up? If I had just woken up, none of this would be happening. We would all be home and everything would have been fine. Didn't Callie see that all of us would have been affected by her decision? Didn't she know that we all really love her?_

Halfway down a block to her house, Stef heard her phone ringing. She detached it from her belt clip, and answered it quickly.

"Callie?" Stef finally had some hope in her eyes.

"No, it's Wyatt. Sorry, I didn't look at my phone unt—"

Stef quickly interrupted him, "No, it's fine. Is Callie with you?"

Wyatt brought his voice to a whisper, and said, "Yes. I told her she should go home, but she didn't want to listen to me."

She put the phone on speaker so Lena could hear. "What? Where are you two now?" Stef asked in a hurry. Lena breathed a sigh of relief, realizing that Wyatt was with Callie.

"We stopped at a motel in Phoenix, to get some rest. She doesn't know I'm returning your call, she would not be too happy with me and she's in the shower… I called as soon as got a chance alone," Wyatt continued to whisper.

"Phoenix, Arizona?" Stef asked shocked. Lena shared the same look.

"Yes, I can stay here for as long as possible, but she's not going to want to stay if she knows you're coming. We'll be here a little while getting some rest," Wyatt said.

"What hotel?" Stef made a fast U-turn and started racing toward the interstate. She listened carefully as Wyatt gave her the name of the hotel. "We're on our way! Don't let her out of your sight."

Lena turned her body completely, so she was facing Stef. "Why is she there? She knows she can get sent back to juvie if they find out she crossed state lines,"

"Apparently, our daughter would rather go to jail than tell us what's wrong with her," Stef replied and slammed her hand on the steering wheel, wondering why Mike's car wasn't driving as fast as she would like. They were already going 90 mph; and to Stef, it didn't seem nearly fast enough. If they didn't get there before Callie woke up, she knew Callie would realize something was up, and they would miss her.

"Stef, slow down please," Lena pleaded.

"I can't," she said with tears in her eyes. "If we don't get to her now, we never will."

"If you don't slow down, you can be sure we'll never reach her," Lena said, as she put her hand on Stef's arm. "Pull over. I'll drive."

This was an order, not a question and Stef realized her wife was right. Her vision was getting blurry, and the rain was making it harder to see alone. Speeding in this weather was not a good idea. She pulled over and allowed Lena to drive. One of them had to be the stronger person.

As Lena was driving, she tried so hard to fight the tears in her eyes. She knew she couldn't let Stef see her upset, because that would just make things worse. "Let me call the kids, and tell them what's going on. I don't want to worry them," Lena said while grabbing her phone and dialing Brandon's cell.


	8. Chapter 8

It was 7:30 the next morning when Callie woke up. She had slept on the bed, while Wyatt slept on the ugly-looking armchair beside it. She thought Wyatt looked kind of cute when he was asleep. She hated the idea of waking him. But she hated the idea of staying in one place for too long even more. She pushed him awake, not knowing how heavy of a sleeper he might be. Wyatt opened his eyes in shock, and turned to look at Callie, and his confusion quickly disappeared.

She laughed, "Sorry. Didn't mean to scare you. Are you ready to go?"

_Shit!_ Wyatt thought. _Stef and Lena still aren't here._ "Not yet, Callie. I was hoping I could get a little more sleep. Can you wake me in a couple of hours? I'm really tired," he replied and followed with a fake yawn.

"Okay… I guess I can take another shower." But she thought, _How much sleep does this guy really need?_

"All right, thanks."

Callie walked to the bathroom and took another shower. As soon as she got out, she saw Wyatt's phone lying on the sink. She looked at the screen and saw that he had 1 new message from Stef: **We'll be there in 30 minutes.** _Traitor! _She looked at the time it was received, and then the current time. _20 minutes ago, _she realized.

Callie quickly got dressed, put on some shoes, and leaned her ear against the door. _Silence, that's good…_ she gathered her duffel bag from the bathroom floor, placed Wyatt's phone back on the sink, and slowly opened the door. She walked out and noticed Wyatt was still sleeping on the armchair. _Here goes nothing,_ she thought to herself as she tiptoed to the front door and reached for the doorknob, spinning it slowly. As she opened it, it creaked, which caused her to clench her eyes together, in fear of waking him up. She opened up her eyes and looked back at Wyatt, _Good, Still knocked out._

She was halfway out the door when she noticed the two women coming out of the silver car. _Fck!_ she thought as she pushed her body back inside, and slowly closed the door. She went over to the window and watched. Stef was on her cell, probably calling Wyatt right now. Good thing she shut his phone off because the ringing would have definitely given her away. Lena was walking towards the front office of the hotel.

Callie quickly walked back into the bathroom and locked herself in. The window in there was small, but she hoped she would fit through it; she had to. _Thank god, we are on the first floor_ she thought, as she pulled open the window. She threw her duffel bag out first and turned on the shower, wetting her jeans along the way. She walked back over to the door and locked it. _That should buy me some time, _she thought as she climbed through it. _Screw that! I didn't run away, so that they could drag me right back. _As soon as her feet landed on the ground, she grabbed her duffel bag and ran as fast as she could, away from the hotel.

The receptionist at the front desk office gave Lena a room number based on the description she had given him. Lena walked back to Stef, "He's not picking up," Stef piped up.

"The receptionist said two teens checked into Room 105 last night." Lena followed Stef in search of the room, and as soon as they reached it, Stef knocked hardly. She hadn't meant to, but she was too anxious. Lena gave her a stern look. Wyatt's eyes jostled open from inside and he already knew who it was. He opened the door, and before he could invite them in, they quickly moved him out of the way and entered.

"Where is she?" Stef asked, eyeing the room. Hearing the shower running seemed to calm both moms down. Lena sat on the end of the bed, finally breathing a sigh of relief.

Stef was about to knock on the door, when Lena stopped her and whispered, "Let her come out first. We don't want to scare her away." Stef thought about it and reluctantly sat down on the bed beside her wife. Wyatt walked back over to the hotel door to shut it, and then sat back down on the armchair. He held up both hands to his forehead. He felt horrible for betraying Callie's trust like this, but he thought he was doing what was best for her. She would just have to except that, _or not_.

They all sat in silence for what seemed like forever, but it was only 20 minutes. "How long has she been in there?" Lena asked?

Wyatt looked at his watch and then let out a "Hmm…" in confusion.

Lena and Stef just looked at him curiously.

"She went in as soon as she woke me up, and that was… like an hour ago. They all got a bad feeling about this.

Stef got up and knocked on the door. Wyatt came over next to her, "Callie!" he said loud enough so that she could hear." _Long Silence._ Stef started to knock again, harder this time and leaned her head in so she could hear any signs of movement. _Still silence. _

"Move out of the way," she told Lena and Wyatt. A second later, she kicked the door open and saw Wyatt's phone lying on top of the sink, the shower Callie had left running, but no Callie.

"Goddammit!" Stef yelled, as she went running toward the back of the hotel, where the window was located. Lena and Wyatt walked toward the bathroom doorway and shared perplexed looks.

Stef was looking in all different directions and couldn't see any sign of Callie. She wanted to start running after her, but didn't know which way to go.

Lena quickly pulled the car up beside Stef, "Get in, she couldn't have gone far on foot."

Stef got in and pointed, "Go straight."

As Lena and Stef raced down the street, they couldn't help but feel frantic. Stef's eyes kept watering, blurring her vision, which made things all the more worse. They kept driving around in circles but still no Callie…

**Okay, so finding Callie right then and there would have been too easy. I know some of you wanted the whole confrontation thing to happen. And it will, don't worry. But more drama has to happen before all of that happy stuff can. I have so many ideas popping up in my mind right now, it's not even funny. Plus, I have to get back to that whole mysterypsychotireslashingstalkerthing, hopefully within the next two chapters, that I'll post later today. **


	9. Chapter 9

Callie had hidden for 30 minutes in the neighboring hotel's parking lot, in between two black SUV's. It was still raining, which just left her trembling from the cold. She figured her best bet was to get out of there, before she'd freeze to death or Lena and Stef called the cops, _hell Stef was a cop_.

She made her way over to the road where she could see a diner across the street from her and what looked to be a car wash, a little further up ahead. She quickly turned around at the sound of someone's feet shuffling as they were walking towards her. She was surprised when she was nothing, so looked back toward the road. She quickly turned around again, when she heard the sound of a car window shattering. It was the same car widow that she was just hiding by. A panicked look came across her face, but she didn't see anyone in sight near the car. _That was weird, _she thought.

With some reluctance, she lifted her thumb up in the air. Although she felt incredibly stupid for having come to this, she was scared now, so she didn't lower her hand. She knew what she was doing was dangerous, but at this point she didn't care. _Stef and Lena would kill me if they saw me right now_, _but what the hell. I'm doing this for Jude_.

Only four cars passed by her before the fifth one started to pull over. Callie walked fast toward the dirty-looking black Toyota Camry. _This dude hasn't washed his car since the 70's_, she thought.

The passenger window lowered, and she could see what looked like a man in his younger 40's with light skin, brown short hair, and blue eyes. "Hey there, sweetheart. Need a ride?"

"Yeah, a matter of fact I do," Callie replied with a forced smile. She got a bad feeling about him, but she was more afraid of Lena and Stef just strolling by and finding her, or whoever might have shattered the car window.

"Well, come on in, then. You look like your freezing," the man said kindly. _Ok, maybe he's not bad_, Callie thought to herself. She opened the car door, and sat in the passenger seat, suddenly feeling bad that she was completely drenched in water and now his passenger seat is too.

The car had a bad cigar smell, and some other strange stench she couldn't quite make out, but she figured her nose would get used to it early.

"Where ya headed?" the man asked with a smile.

"In your direction. As far as you can take me please," Callie responded.

"You sound like you just escaped from a penitentiary or something…I like you already," the man smiled as he drove off.

Callie suddenly felt a chill go up her spine and her goose bumps had become obvious, but she wasn't sure if she was scared or just really cold. She didn't want to open her duffle bag and look for a sweater; because she thought that opening a big bag filled with clothes would make it obvious that she was a runaway. But then again she thought, 'Who else would hitch?'

"You cold?" the man said a few minutes after they had been driving. She obviously didn't hide her goose bumps very well and she fidgeted in her seat, every time the man looked at her.

"A little." With that, the man turned the heat on blast. _Maybe this guy isn't as dangerous as I thought_, Callie wondered.

"What's your name, Hun?"

"Jane," Callie lied. _There's no way in hell I'm giving this dude my real name_, she thought. _He's probably taking my ass to the nearest police station for all I know. _After a long pause she added, "And yours?"

"John," he replied. She knew he was lying too, so she smiled. "What's a pretty young girl doing on the side of the road? In the rain, I might add?"

_Crap!_ Callie thought. _Think of something_. "I'm not that young…" she lied "and I was on my way to visit my aunt, she lives around here, but I missed my train. Walking in the rain was becoming unbearable. She knew I was coming, but I didn't want to worry her with having to pick me up." She hoped her story sounded somewhat realistic.

"Well, it's lucky I stopped to pick you up then, huh?" he replied, still smiling.

_Uh…not sure yet. Ask me again when you let me out. _"Yeah, I guess your right," she gave him a nervous smile back. His smile kind of freaked her out, but she wasn't about to say something rude.

"So, how old are you anyway?" the man asked, as he put his hand on Callie's knee. She froze, not knowing what to do. She quickly glanced around and saw no one, not one car, not one sign of civilization anywhere.

"20," she said in a nervous voice. She couldn't admit her real age, not like it really mattered at this point anyway. He obviously wasn't taking her to any police station now.

"I would have never guessed that," he replied, putting his hand farther up her leg. Callie didn't know what to do? She was terrified at the thought of a billion things this guy could do to her. "Can you let me out of the car, please" Callie pleaded. She said it as calmly as possible, not wanting to piss this guy off.

The man slowly pulled his hand off of her lap. With that freaky-looking smile he said, "Sure I'll let you out." He swerved off of the road and sped into the tall yellow grass that she had been gazing at for a few miles now. He was driving extremely fast, and she could feel the bumps the car hitting the ground, and with each bump, she was slightly lifted from her seat.

She went to open the car door handle and realized she couldn't, it was somehow locked from the inside. "WHAT ARE YOU DOING?" She yelled.

"About to grant your wish!" he yelled back, still with that evil looking smile on his face.

**Oh snap. **

**It's about to go down! (Kevin Hart voice). So, I should update the next chapter within the next few hours. Already have some of it written, but have to do the whole proofreading thing, and for some reason I always feel the need to add more stuff to it. These chapters look way longer on Microsoft Word than they do on here, but whatever. **


	10. Chapter 10

Stef and Lena had been driving around for an hour now, and still no sight of Callie.

"We were right there, Stef. How could we have missed her? She didn't get that much of a head start on us. She won't get very far on foot anyways, right?" Even though Lena was trying to rationalize the whole situation and give them some hope, her palms were sweating and she was fidgeting in her seat. Her adrenaline was pumping and so was Stef's.

"I don't know. I don't know," Stef replied annoyed, that Lena was asking her questions she didn't fully know the answers to. _Why the hell would Callie run from us again? Why didn't I knock on the door as soon as I got there? If I had done that, then we could have reached her on time and none of this would be happening all over again. What was Callie so afraid of, that she had to keep dodging us? _ "Call Wyatt, maybe he found her or she called him or something." Stef handed Lena her cell.

Lena quickly grabbed it, making sure to not take her eyes off the road; she was afraid they might drive right past her and miss her completely. She hit the redial button and anxiously waited. It took 4 rings until Wyatt finally answered.

"Hello, did you find—" Lena started.

"No, I haven't. I've been driving around everywhere, but I'll be sure to call if I do."

Lena lets out a huge grudge, not meaning to sound angry with the boy, although she couldn't help but blame him too. _We told him not to let Callie out of his sight, and what does he do? Exactly that._ "Okay." Lena quickly hung up, realizing that it wasn't his fault. _What was he supposed to do? Follow her into the bathroom? _

Stef took a deep breath, after discovering Wyatt too hadn't heard from Callie. "She's gotta be around here… And it's raining. So, maybe she went into one of those places near the hotel. We'll check there before we call the police," Stef said.

"I thought we weren't going to involve the police. You said it could get her sent back to juvie, Stef!" Now, that Lena understood the consequences her wife had explained to her, she didn't want to involve them.

"What other choices do we have, Lena? She ran from us twice! You know she's not going to contact Wyatt again. And she left the state. We don't know where the hell she's going and now we know she's by herself?!"

Lena calmed down. "Okay," Lena agreed as they drove by the motel, where Callie ran away from. Lena pointed to the small building that seemed to be relatively close to them. "Let's try the diner."

"Okay, we'll check there first."

It finally stopped raining, and the sun was coming out. As soon as they walked in, they were greeted by a hostess, "Hi, just 2?" the redheaded young woman asked.

Stef and Lena's eyes were already searching the tables, not realizing they were ignoring her completely.

Stef spoke up first after scanning the diner, "No. We were wondering if you've recently seen a young girl, brown hair, brown eyes, light skin, around my height? Did someone like that come in here within the past hour or so? She would have been alone—"

"Uh…She didn't come in. I saw a girl matching your description hitching just across the street a little while ago. We called the police, but some guy picked her up, before they arrived," the woman said.

"Oh my god!" Lena responded with her hands over her open mouth.

Stef shut her eyes in disappointment, "Are you sure it was her? Did she have anything with her? Like a bag or something?"

Lena pulled out her cell phone and showed the woman the picture on her screensaver. It was one that they had taken on Mariana's quinceañera of the entire family. She pointed to Callie's face.

"…That looks a lot like her. I remember she had a blue duffel bag. That's why we called the police, because we figured she was a runaway," the woman replied.

"Do you remember what kind of car it was that she got into?" Stef asked.

"Yeah, it was a black Toyota Camry. Not sure what year, but it was pretty dirty and gross," she said.

"Which direction were they going?" asked Stef.

"That way," she said while pointing left of the road.

With that, Stef quickly grabbed Lena's arm and started walking her back toward Mike's car. "Hurry. Get in."

"Don't you think we should call the police," Lena argued.

Stef stepped on the gas so hard that the tires screeched as she drove away. She ignored her wife's question for a second before she answered. "We will. Callie just left a few minutes ago; maybe we can catch up with her. Steph drove fast. Thankfully there were absolutely no cars on the road, and the weather had cleared up. The entire area looked deserted, as if no one had stepped foot in the town in centuries. Lena just sat nervously in her seat…

**Okay. This one was a little shorter, but I didn't know what else to write. Next chapter: Callie's situation revealed and will Stef and Lena catch up to her? Who knows… And you guys gave me some pretty good ideas. Will try to incorporate some soon. **


	11. Chapter 11

**Disclaimer: Okay, so if you sensitive to sexual assault or anything of that nature please skip over this chapter, or discontinue reading… whichever you prefer. Also, this Chapter will be Rated M for language, content etc.**

Quickly after running the car off the road, the Camry finally came to an abrupt stop. Callie's body jumped off of the passenger seat, causing her head to collide with the front windshield, making a slight crack on it.

Her heart was racing so fast, she thought it would pop out of her chest. John, or whatever his name was, got out of the car and began walking toward her side. Callie quickly jumped over to the driver's seat and opened the door, in an attempt to escape. But the man grabbed her by her legs, and pulled them to drag her out. He got Callie halfway out of the car, when she kicked him in the face. "GET OFF ME!" she yelled. The kick threw him off balance and onto the ground, allowing her to rush out of the car, through the driver's side.

As soon as she got out, she ran through the tall yellow grass. "HELP!" she yelled too afraid to glance back, but she knew no one was around to hear her.

The man covered his nose with one hand, looked back down at it and saw his own blood, "YOU LITTLE BITCH!"

He got right back up and tackled her to the ground before she could get very far. He pulled tightly on her hair, so that she could move and held his elbow tightly against her neck, so she couldn't scream. "SHUT THE FUCK UP OR I'LL SNAP YOUR FUCKING NECK!" he warned, and punched her in the mouth while doing so. She yelped. "You wanted to get out of the car, now you're out! I gave you exactly what you wanted," he said while letting out a little laugh. He ripped her sweater off, and unzipped her jeans, while still holding her by the hair, but letting go of her neck in the process.

She coughed. "Please let me go. I'm sorry I upset you. I didn't mean to I swear!" Callie pleaded.

"I'll forgive you. Don't worry. You're going to have plenty of time to make it up to me, Sweetheart. Just be quiet and no body has to get hurt. Last bitch to test me wasn't so lucky." He was unzipping his own jeans now and Callie just covered her eyes, and began to cry.

He managed to get his pants halfway down when a figure in a navy blue hoodie pulled "Jack" off of Callie. When she uncovered her eyes, she could see someone beating the crap out of him. "RUN! GET OUT OF HERE, GO!" the voice yelled at her.

She couldn't make out his face because his hoodie was covering his head and the mysterious man was turned away from her. She heard Jack yelping, while in the process of getting his ass kicked. Callie pulled her jeans back up, and ran without grabbing her sweater, leaving her with only her white bra on. She ran like hell back to the road, hearing Jack scream in agonizing pain and beg for his life, "PLEASE! NO, MORE! DON'T KILL ME! I'M SORRY! DO—" She stopped once and looked back, but then heard silence. She wasn't about to stay and find out what happened, so she kept running. She didn't have any idea if she was even going in the right direction.

As soon as she reached the road, she froze when a silver car was racing toward her. At the last second, the car swerved and she leaped out of the way, hitting her head hard on the pavement, knocking herself unconscious. The car made an abrupt stop on the left side of the road, halfway through the tall yellow grass.

Lena and Stef came rushing out in an instant. They both leaned over and took a look at Callie. She had blood dripping down the right side of her upper forehead and down her face, a cut on her lower lip, and it seemed that the collision when her head hit the pavement caused yet another injury, not to mention she was lying on the ground shirt-less.

Stef's face went from pale to the sight of Callie on the road, to red from anger, once she realized someone must have done this to her. She looked up, and saw a silver Toyota Tundra truck nearby, and ran towards it, leaving Lena to tend to Callie. When she reached the truck, she looked confused when she saw that it was empty. She did a 360° and saw no one, so she ran back toward Callie and Lena.

She saw that Lena was having absolutely no luck waking the girl up, so Stef went to check her neck for a pulse. "She's got a pulse…" Stef stood up and tried to pick Callie up. "Help me get her to the car." Half-way to the car, they heard the sound of once empty truck's engine and looked up to see it speed away. "Motherfucker!"

They carried her to the backseat of Mike's car, and Stef fought the urge to have a speed race with the other driver.

Lena sat next to Callie and kept trying to wake her up, while her wife searched for hospitals in Mike's GPS. "Callie," Lena said while trying to shake her awake, but got no response. "Callie!" she yelled a little louder and slapped her in the face this time.

Stef drove quickly to the nearest hospital, checking her mirror constantly too glance back at the two.

**Okay, updated as soon as I could. Sorry, I couldn't have Stef save Callie from Jack, but I thought this way would be more interesting. I should update the next 2 or 3 chapters by sometime tomorrow. HINT: Callie/Lena/ Stef confrontation, and more of the other characters. Thanks for all your reviews and again, future chapters still aren't written so I'm open to any suggestions…**


	12. Chapter 12

**QUICK SUMMARY FOR THOSE WHO SKIPPED LAST CHAPTER: Callie was attacked by "Jack" and was "almost" raped. A random guy in a navy hoodie rescued her, but she never saw his face. She ran back to the road and was almost run over immediately by Stef and Lena. Callie leaped out of the way when the car came toward her and hit her head on the pavement, knocking herself unconscious. There was a truck on the road as well, when Stef and Lena first arrived, that disappeared soon after. It ended with them driving her to the hospital.**

Callie opened her eyes slightly every once in awhile during the car ride, but quickly shut them soon after, and never actually said anything. As soon as they arrived at the hospital, a few nurses grabbed Callie from Stef and Lena. The moms explained what they knew but that they didn't know the whole story. One nurse with a brown ponytail gave both of them a disapproving look, like if she was saying _You almost ran your foster daughter over with your car?_ The moms just ignored her, and focused on Callie.

She was taken to another hallway, and just before the double doors slammed shut on Stef and Lena, another nurse said, "Sorry, but you ladies can't come in here. We'll notify you as soon as we get some news."

Both moms gave her a frustrated look at first, but they realized that it was probably best to let the professionals do their job. They sat impatiently in the waiting room, constantly eyeing the double doors where they last saw Callie enter.

About an hour later, a doctor in his mid 40's with gray hair came in the waiting room to address them. "Hi, I'm Dr. Pearson and I'm the one working with Callie Jacobs. Okay, so for the most part, Callie is physically fine. The rape kit came back negative, and we patched up the injuries on her head." Both moms sighed in relief. "However, we would like to keep her for a couple of days for observation. And we've had to notify the police about the injuries. You two are her foster parents, correct?" He wasn't trying to sound as if he was accusing them of anything, but they couldn't help but feel as if he was doing exactly that.

"Yes," they replied at the same time, while looking agitated.

"We understand. We want nothing more than to catch the bastard who did this to her," Stef replied.

"Can we see her?" Lena asked.

"Yes, but we will have to warn you. We believe she's suffering from Traumatic Amnesia, from the blow to her head. It appears that she has no recollection of any of the recent events, and when we asked her today's date, she couldn't give us an answer. She keeps ignoring us and asking for someone by the name of Jude."

Both moms appeared stunned. Lena asked, "When will she get her memory back?"

"Things aren't so clear cut. For these types of injuries, it isn't positive that she will. Which is why we have to go to such measures as to calling the police and notifying CPS. Her memory may come back in a few hours, or a few days, or…"

"Or what?" Stef asked with even more concern on her face.

"Or the memory loss may be permanent," the doctor replied. Stef looked away from him at this point in disbelief. Lena just stared at him aghast from everything that he was saying. "But let's not get ahead of ourselves. Let's take things slow for the next few days and we'll see where this takes us."

_Is this guy serious?_ Stef thought to herself, and shared an annoyed look with Lena.

The doctor led Stef and Lena to a private room where Callie was lying upright on the hospital bed, using the phone. She had a hospital gown on now and seemed pretty aggravated. "Just put Jude on the phone now," she almost yelled and patiently waited for the person on the other line to finish talking.

Stef walked over and slowly tried to grab the phone from Callie touching her hand, "Callie, J—

"What the hell are you doing?" Callie snapped, while snatching the phone from Stef's grip and giving her a harsh look, like she was ready to pounce on her if she said the wrong thing.

Stef backed up a little, "Relax, Callie it's me Stef."

"Congratulations. NOW DON'T EVER PUT YOUR HANDS ON ME AGAIN!" Callie looked away from Stef, after a few seconds, and listened intently to the voice on the other end of the line. "WHAT DO YOU MEAN HE'S NOT THERE? WELL, WHERE IS HE?" she was getting even more angry, which didn't even seem possible a few seconds ago.

Stef fought the urge to yell at Callie at this moment. The doctor spoke up, "Callie, this is Stephanie Foster and Lena Adams; they are your foster parents."

Lena glanced up at him with a worried and annoyed look, "…going to be your adoptive parents."

Callie looked up at both the doctor and Lena with a confused face, like if she was silently asking _What the hell?_ "Yeah, right." She was obviously challenging them, by refusing to believe that she would choose to live with these two women, forever.

"Yes, we are right! Callie, do you seriously not remember us?" Stef asked, while looking into Callie's eyes.

Callie looked back to face her, and just as Stef thought she was finally getting through to her, Callie looked over to the doctor. "…Doctor, Can you please get these lunatics out of my room and call Bill, before I lose it." Stef and Lena tried to fight the tears from forming in their eyes, but Callie didn't seem to notice.

"Cal—" the doctor started.

"Forget it, I'll call Bill. Please just get these nuts out of my room." Both women had to walk out to keep from falling apart in front of her. Callie just hung up the line and began to dial Bill's number.

**Updated as soon as I could, but it took a little while. Had to do some research on Amnesia and what not, which took longer than expected… **


	13. Chapter 13

The conversation between Callie and Bill had been a confusing one for both of them. He wondered why she was in a hospital in Arizona, after seeing the call come from an Arizona zip code, and she couldn't help but wonder the same thing. Overall, the conversation filled her in on a lot of the blanks she had, about the two women she just yelled at and called crazy. She now knew, that Jude was in the hands of these two women and was _supposedly _doing really well.

Suddenly, she felt bad for going off on Stefanie and whoever the other woman's name was, but was still concerned for Jude.

Stef and Lena had been sitting silently for 15 minutes on some chairs they placed by Callie's door. They were not going to give her another chance to get away, even though they thought that was highly unlikely, since she didn't have any clue, who either of them were. Lena had already called home to let everyone know that they had found Callie and that she was okay. She left out the details for now, so that her kids wouldn't worry. They just sat beside each other, not letting go of each other's hands since the whole fiasco occurred.

"How are we going to fix this?" Lena finally asked.

"I don't know, love."

A whole new realization came over Lena, "What if her memory doesn't come back?" She stared blankly at the floor, hoping that wouldn't be the case.

"Then… then we do it all over," Stef replied as if it was an obvious answer.

Lena looked baffled. "Well, she doesn't like us very much right now…"

Stef let out a small laugh, "And how is that different from the day we first met." Lena smiled at Stef's attempt to lighten the moment.

A minute later they both stood up from their seats as Callie opened the door. She stared at them, suddenly confused at how quickly they stood up. "Can I talk to Jude?" she asked calmly. She felt less hostile toward them, after hearing that Jude "supposedly" really liked them. Bill could have been lying, or didn't know the whole story about them, himself. So, she wasn't going to make up her mind to hate them just yet. And she couldn't quite understand why she and Jude were placed in a house with a couple of lesbians.

"Um… Sure," Lena replied while taking out her cell phone, calling home, and waiting for someone to answer. Thankfully, Jude answered. "Jude, it's Lena…" Callie's eyes lit up for the first time since they arrived at the hospital. "I'm here with Callie, and she just asked to speak with you."

Callie waited with desperation and after a few seconds, she was handed the phone. "Jude, are you okay?" Stef and Lena stared at each other for a second and then back at Callie. They couldn't believe she was the one in the hospital and was asking Jude if _he_ was okay.

"NO, I'M NOT OKAY! How could you leave me, Callie? You told me you weren't going to be selfish, and you did the most selfish thing in the world. You run away and leave me here alone. I HATE YOU!"

Callie looked confused and hurt at the same time. Jude sounded completely different from the way she remembered. And before she could speak, she noticed the line went dead, so she just stood there with her mouth open. Then, she slowly handed the phone back to Lena and walked back into the room. She sat on the bed, not even bothering to close the door.

Lena and Stef looked at each other, unsure of whether going in to comfort her was a good idea or not. They risked it anyway.

"Callie, are you all right?" Lena sat down to the right of her, and didn't seem all that surprised when Callie shifted a little to the left. Stef took a seat on the green armchair that was located somewhat next to the bed and glanced at the two.

"… Did I really run away and leave Jude?" Callie asked, hoping to hear Lena say something different from what her brother told her.

Silence filled the room. "Yes…bu—"

"Why would I do that? I wouldn't do that to him. I promised I would never do that." Callie began to cry at the realization that she hurt her brother in the biggest possible way.

Stef spoke, "We don't know, Callie. We were hoping you could tell us, but now… What happened Callie? What's the last thing you remember?"

Callie thought for a second, "Um… being at Brenda's birthday party." She looked at them hoping that they had some inclination as to who Brenda was, but it was obvious that they didn't. Even though she had no right, she became annoyed with them for being so clueless at the moment. "…So, when can I get out of here?" She glanced at Stef, trying to avoid the subject.

They looked puzzled. "The doctor said that they need to keep you a few days for observation, and then—"

"Uh, no way. I'm not staying here that long. I'm ready to go now." She stood up and looked around, hoping to find her clothes. Lena and Stef both jumped up from their seats at the same time.

"We don't think that's a good idea," Lena said while getting Callie to sit down. "You're hurt and you're suffering from memory loss an—"

"Yeah! Thanks to you trying to run me over!" Callie stood right back up.

Lena looked to her wife for help. Stef walked over to her, "CALLIE, IF YOU DON'T SIT DOWN—"

"If I don't sit down, what? You can't drive your car through the hospital room!"

Lena quickly got in between the two, and faced Stef. "Okay, let's just take a breath." 

"I have a better idea. How about you dykes just leave me and my brother alone."

Just as Stef was about to lose it, Lena grabbed hold of Stef's face with her hands, silently ordering her to not break eye contact with her. They knew that Callie didn't mean what she was saying, and she probably convinced herself that they were unsafe.

What they didn't know was Callie really thought that they were the ones who brought her to Arizona in some revenge plot that had against her. It was the only thing that made some sense to her. She would never leave Jude unprotected, willingly. She didn't know what to believe. She quickly walked back over to the bed, and sat quietly giving them a dirty-look the entire time. Both moms walked out of the room, to discuss the situation away from Callie's hearing, closing the door behind them.

When they looked on the ground next to Callie's room, they saw a bouquet of roses, and a note.

"What the hell?" Stef asked as she picked up the note and noticed that it was written in the same handwriting as the one she found taped to her car just a day before:

**Glad to see you're feeling better, Callie.**

**Especially after all that's happened. **

**Don't worry. We'll all be together soon enough.**

Stef was outraged once she finished reading the note. Lena read it over her shoulder, while Stef glanced at both directions of the hallway. She ran over to the front desk, ready to blow up. Lena looked down at the bouquet of roses, like if they had suddenly died and turned black. She ran toward Stef to try to keep her from hitting anyone.

Stef grabbed a nurse by her arm, "WHO WALKED BY HERE WITHIN THE PAST FEW MINUTES WITH A BOUQUET OF ROSES?"

"Stef," Lena called, while getting her to let go of the young woman.

The woman looked absolutely terrified of Stef, and lost her voice. "Umm… I…Uhhhh… didn't see anyone walk by with any roses."

"YOU DIDN'T SEE ANYONE? SO YOU'RE TELLING ME THAT SOMEONE STROLLS RIGHT BY YOU WITH A GIANT BOUQUET OF ROSES, WITH A NOTE ATTACHED THREATENING MY DAUGHTER, AND YOU DIDN'T SEE HIM?"

At this point, the police had finally arrived to talk to Callie, and had caught wind of Stef's outburst. They quickly got in between the two women, but Stef couldn't take her eyes of the nurse. One of the policemen stepped right in front of her, blocking her vision. "Mam, we're going to ask you to sit down," the man ordered.

She was a cop. She knew the drill, so she handed him the piece of paper, and took a seat. When she glanced over to Callie's room, she could see the door was open and remembered that they had closed it to talk in private. Her eyes opened-wide, and she jumped up and ran towards the room. "CALLIE!"

The policeman and Lena followed her, and they all stopped when they realized the room was empty…

**Uh-oh. **

**Callie's missing again. **

**Is it because of her own volition, or is it someone else's doing? Hmm… I don't even know yet, but you'll know by sometime tomorrow. This chapter took forever to write. **

**I'm glad you're enjoying the story, and love reading your reviews. You're actually making me want to right more, faster, believe it or not. **


	14. Chapter 14

Stef and Lena searched Callie's room up and down. "Mam, who exactly are you looking for?" the policeman asked, as he watch confused, at both women's frantic reactions. Another police officer walked in to help.

Lena stayed to speak to both male officers, while Stef quickly ran out to search for the girl. She quickly explained the details of everything that had gone on, excluding the running away part. She told them about the slashed tires, the note left on their car window, the bouquet of roses, and the note they had just received. She also gave them a quick description of Callie, and informed them, that she believed whoever wrote the note, was an imminent danger to their daughter. Afterward, they ran out of the room in search of the missing girl.

As Stef ran down the stairs from the 5th floor, she saw Callie from the large glass windows that displayed the outside of the hospital. She was still in her hospital gown and running in opposite direction of the hospital. Stef sped up, exiting the building and grabbing Callie by her arm.

"HEY! GET YOUR HANDS OFF OF ME, YOU BITCH!" Callie yelled while she tried to push Stef away and break free. "LET ME GO!"

"Stop fighting me!" Stef's grip was obviously stronger than Callie's, and she barely struggled with Callie's resistance. When it became obvious to Callie, that she wasn't going to be able to break free from Stef's grasp, she stopped and just glared at the blonde.

"What do you want from me?" she asked, her voice cracking a little at the end of the question.

Stef thought she was in over her head here. She wasn't sure what she could say to keep Callie from escaping again, so she just stayed silent.

"I have to get out of here…PLEASE," she whined, while giving her the same look she gave Lena the first day they met, outside of juvie.

After a long pause, Callie's look, even made Stef give in, "Fine. We'll leave, but you are not to run away again. Understood?"

Callie nodded in agreement, although she wasn't entirely sure that she would keep that promise. But for now, it was better than spending days at a hospital, away from Jude.

Stef walked Callie to the parking lot, refusing to let go of her arm. Once she arrived at Mike's car, she placed Callie in the backseat and put the child safety lock on both back doors and locked the windows, so that she couldn't open the doors from the other side.

Callie glanced at her in shock; she was annoyed that she was being treated as a child. "Relax. It's only for now, until I can trust you."

Callie scoffed in response, but Stef ignored it.

She got out of the car and closed the doors, so that she could call Lena and notify her of the situation. She already knew it wasn't going to be easy to convince her wife to go along with this, but Stef had already told Callie that they would leave. She wasn't going to gain Callie's trust by contradicting herself a few minutes later, and then ask for her to trust them in return.

"But Stef, the doctor said—" Lena protested.

"I KNOW WHAT THE DOCTOR SAID!" Stef lowered her voice to a whisper when Callie gave her a perplexed look from the car window. "… but she doesn't want to stay, and it's not safe here anymore. These guys could still be here. That note said 'we,' and they are probably the one's who hurt her to begin with. We aren't staying here." She eyed her surroundings, for the first time wondering, since exiting the hospital, if she was being watched at this very moment. "Look, I'm tired. I just want to get out of here right now. Please love, let's just go, and we'll figure everything else out later."

Lena was hesitant, but realized that Stef was probably right. So, she met them at the car to leave.

The car ride on the way back was quiet. Callie kept looking at the moms confused as to why they actually listened to her and agreed to leave the hospital. She was still clueless about the mystery notes, the vandalism to their cars, and the roses.

Stef kept adjusting her rearview mirror to look at Callie, and also so that she would notice if they were being followed. Lena was just staring off out to space, having a silent conversation with herself. She couldn't help but think that leaving the hospital with Callie, the way that they did, was a bad idea.

An hour into the car ride, Lena's phone began to ring. She dug through her purse to find it, and quickly glanced at the screen and froze. It was Bill who was calling, and Stef peered over to Lena's hand and froze as well. They just looked at each other, refusing to break eye contact, until the phone stopped ringing. Callie sat in the backseat, suddenly even more confused as to why they were staring at each other, with what looked to be fear in their eyes.

Lena wanted to call Bill back, but had no clue how to answer all of the questions he might have. Like _Why were they in Arizona with Callie, and not with the other children? Or why Callie was in the hospital with various injuries and a concussion, while she was under their care? Or why Callie was able to disappear from the hospital? And why they hadn't returned?_ They just continued driving, while silently stressing themselves out.

**Phew… Finally finished this chapter. So, some of you wanted Callie to try to run away from them again, so I've included that in this one, if you couldn't tell…**

**The next chapter should include some more on that whole mystery situation thing I have going on. I'll try to post it in a few hours; it takes a lot longer to write all this, than it takes to read it, so please be patient with me. **

**Any more ideas?**


	15. Chapter 15

Around two hours later, it had become dark and all three of them appeared to be drained from the all of the chaos they had endured throughout the day. Both moms had agreed to pull over at a nearby motel and sleep it off. Stef protested at first, but after almost drifting off for a second at the wheel, she finally gave in.

Lena walked to the front desk at the motel, while Stef and Callie waited awkwardly in the car. The moms thought the clerk would think something was up, if he caught glimpse of the two women holding a young girl against her will. The fact that she looked nothing like either of them wouldn't have helped their situation. As soon as Lena came back to the car, Stef got out and opened the door for Callie, eyeing her cautiously as she exited the vehicle.

To Stef and Lena's surprise, she didn't run. She just looked at them like a confused child, as if asking _what now?_

Callie considered running, during the lengthy wait in the car, but came to the conclusion that it was a bad idea. She already knew that Stef was faster and stronger than her, so right now when she was standing right next to her, wouldn't have been the perfect time.

Stef held Callie's upper arm while walking to their room, following Lena's lead. She was a cop and had already considered, that Callie might have been plotting another attempt to escape. When Lena opened the door, they all stood at the doorway, staring at the room in disgust. There were stains on the beige colored walls and what looked to be like mold coming out of the ceiling, not to mention an awful stench that they couldn't quite point out.

"It's only for a few hours," Lena reminded them as she made her way in and threw her purse on the first full sized bed she saw. The other two slowly entered, as if afraid the ceiling would collapse at any moment. Which seemed like a possibility, now that they saw the small whole on the upper right corner of the room. "Well, I have to use the restroom. You two going to be ok wh—"

"We'll be fine," Stef interjected and waited for her wife to close the bathroom door. Callie sat on the other bed appearing annoyed at the two of them, for automatically assuming that she would try to leave again.

Stef saw this and she was unsure how to play this one out. "Okayyy…so Callie, we are all in need of some sleep, so it's in your best interest not to try anything like that little stunt you pulled at the hospital again tonight. Tomorrow morning, we'll get a head start on the drive home… where you will see Jude." Stef knew her best bet to having Callie stay put, was the thought of her seeing her little brother again. It hurt her to admit that by not mentioning his name, Callie wouldn't hesitate to ditch them if she got the chance. But she knew that it wasn't Callie's fault that she couldn't remember either of them. "Do you want to see Jude?"

Callie knew exactly what Stef was trying to do and she hated to admit it, but it was working. However, she was now plotting her escape as soon as she got hold of her bother. _These people aren't going to be around 24/7_, she thought to herself. _I just have to stick around for one night. I can do that._ "Yes, Stephanie. I won't move," she responded with a little bit of an attitude.

Lena came out of the bathroom. "Do either of you have to go?" Callie got up and walked to the bathroom, and Stef tried to follow but Lena stopped her. "She'll be fine. The window's too small for her to get out anyway…How long are we going to do this for?"

Stef relaxed herself and sat down on the bed. "I have no clue. But we don't have to worry about that tonight," Stef sounded so positive.

"What do you want to do? Take turns sleeping?" Lena asked afraid that her wife's answer was going to be yes. They were both so exhausted, and this was supposed to be their honeymoon. And instead, they had been chasing Callie around all day, and their job still wasn't done.

"I have a better idea," Stef responded with a smile.

While in the bathroom, Callie had looked for a window. _Damn! Too small. Okay, breathe Callie, breathe. You just have to get through tonight with these psychotic bitches, and tomorrow you can go. What the hell is wrong with them? Keeping you hostage like this? Using your brother as a pawn to get you to do everything they say. The nerve of them…Screw that, you can look up their address in a phone book and get Jude yourself._ _Just wait till they're passed out and run like hell. _Her mind was already made up, when she opened the door to the bathroom.

"All done?" Stef asked.

"Yes?" Callie responded, wondering what Stef was going to say now.

"Can you sit on the bed for me please?" she gestured for Callie to sit on the upper part of the bed.

"Why?" Callie asked, suddenly crossing her arms.

"This will be a lot easier on all of us if you sit on the bed," Stef responded clearly losing patience with the girl.

Callie did as she was told, obviously intimidated to some extent by the woman. Stef knew she had to do this quick, before Callie could make any more trouble for her. Lena looked at Stef, with the same confusion showing on her face that Callie now had.

"Okay," Stef said as she quickly grabbed her handcuffs from her back pocket and slapped them on Callie's left wrist.

"Hey!" Callie jumped up from her spot on the bed and tried to get Stef to release her by pushing her away, and pulling at her now cuffed wrist.

Lena just stood there stunned, "Stef!"

But Stef pushed Callie back onto the bed and slapped the other cuff around the iron-framed bed, then quickly backed away.

"YOU CRAZY BITCH! LET ME GO! HELP!" Callie screamed, in hopes that someone would hear her and call the police.

**Lol, I was dying when I wrote the last part. I cracked myself up. **

**On a more serious note, I finally wrote 15 chapters. Yay me! Didn't plan on writing this much, but wth. **

**And okay, I know I said I would include a mystery part in this chapter, but this idea just came to me, and then I had no room for the mystery part I had made up in my head. But definitely next chapter. **


	16. Chapter 16

"HELP! THEY'RE TRYING TO KILL ME. THERY'RE TRYI—" Stef covered Callie's mouth with her hand, sat down on the bed, and grabbed Callie by her other hand so that she couldn't fight her.

"Stef, take those off of her now!" Lena budded in, angry that her wife went to such extreme measures to subdue the girl.

Stef ignored her wife's request. "Callie, listen to me. I promise you we are not going to hurt you. But we need you to cooperate with us, okay. If not for us, than for yourself or for Jude."

Callie looked at her strangely silently wondering, _How the heck is cooperating with you, any benefit to either me or Jude?_

It was like Stef read her mind, "Do you remember where you were right before you came to live with us?" Callie just shook her head. "You were in juvie." Callie's eyes opened wide at the mention of juvie. She didn't believe that she could have gone to juvie, and completely forget all about it nonetheless. "Do you know what could happen if the police found out you ran away from us and left the state? Or if Bill finds out?" Stef waited for a nod yes or no. She didn't receive either. "You can get sent back there, and that means you won't see Jude again for a very long time. And you won't be able to watch over him like you do? Is that what you want?" Callie shook her head no. "Good. So, if I let go of you, are you going to keep screaming?" Callie thought for a second, and quickly shook her head no.

"Okay." Finally, Stef let go of her mouth and looked back at Lena.

Callie wasn't sure whether to trust them or not. She still wasn't entirely convinced that Stef was telling the truth, but she wasn't about to get the police involved and find out. "Why?"

"Why what?" Stef asked.

Callie's voice became raspy from all of the screaming, "Why was I in juvie?" Stef turned her attention to Lena, for some help.

"Um. Because you destroyed on of you foster dad's car." Callie looked at her with disbelief, suddenly wondering if she should scream her head off again. "…He was hurting Jude, and you tried to get in between them, but… you got hurt and took it out on his car."

Callie appeared to finally understand. "So wait a minute, you're telling me, that I was in juvie because I wrecked some bastards car, and I left Jude. And then I left Jude again, when I ran away because, why?"

Lena and Stef just looked at each other, completely unsure of the answer to that question themselves. Lena continued, "We aren't entirely sure why Callie. You seemed happy the day of the wedding and the day before when we asked you—"

"Who's wedding?"

"Ours," both moms replied at the same time. Callie tried to remember all of this, but failed to.

"It's okay if you can't remember, sweets," Stef budded in now. There was a long pause, and Callie suddenly felt bad for forgetting all of that.

Lena tried to lighten the mood a little, "I don't know about you guys, but I'm parched. I saw a vending machine by the front desk, what can I get you two?"

"A shot of vodka," Stef joked. "I mean a 7_up_." Callie couldn't help but laugh at the comment.

"And you, missy?"

"The keys to these cuffs and maybe a getaway car…"A worried look appeared on Lena's face, but Stef let out a small laugh, trying to hide her mouth from her wife with her back of her hand. "I mean a water would be nice."

Stef checked the time 8:42. "I'll order the pizza."

Callie hadn't wanted to say anything, but she was glad Stef was ordering food. Her stomach was growling from hunger for a while now, and she wasn't sure of the last time she had eaten.

"Sausage or pepperoni?" Stef asked as she grabbed a pizza menu from on top of a wooden desk, near the door.

Callie was surprised she even asked for her input, "Whatever's fine."

At the vending machine, Lena grabbed 2 waters, and was getting some quarters out of the coin slot when she heard shoes shuffling towards her. It sounded like someone was coming from the right side of the parking lot in her direction, but when she turned her head she saw no one. She peered her head out even further away from the vending machine, to see if she missed someone, but the coast was clear. _Hm...That's strange,_ she thought as she grabbed the rest of the change from the coin slot, and began putting the money back into the machine slowly.

She clicked on the 7_up _button and heard a car door slam, which caused her to jump. She turned her attention back towards the parking lot, and still didn't see anything or anyone. She looked back at the vending machine and saw the big capital letters light up in blue: OUT OF STOCK. _Seriously, now?_ she thought to herself.

She glanced quickly at the options again and clicked on the first soda option she saw, Coke. She reached over and grabbed it. As soon as she turned her body away from the machine, she heard a loud, raspy, man's voice, "WE WARNED YOU!"

Lena turned to her right and was petrified when all she saw was a shadow of a man sitting down in a chair facing her, that had not been there just a few seconds ago. He was smoking a cigarette under a streetlight. "WE TOLD YOU IT WAS BEST IF YOU STAYED HOME!" Another shadow of a man walked beside his chair, coming out of the silver tundra truck they had seen, when they first found Callie on the side of the side of the road. The other man spoke, "THIS COULD HAVE BEEN A LOT EASIER!"

She slowly dropped the drinks and ran towards the room…

**Boom Shakalaka. **

**Sorry. I'm bored and acting stupid. **

**Anyways, I had to add something crazy, for my own entertainment, and this scene with Lena seemed interesting to me. Idk about you guys… **

**And I got an interesting idea by Sydney lee, which I would have used in this if I hadn't already written half of it. But you just gave me an interesting idea for a future chapter, so thank you btw.**


	17. Chapter 17

Stef had just finished ordering the pizza, when she heard a harsh knock on the door. "STEF, OPEN UP. IT'S ME."

Stef heard the desperation in her wife's voice and instantly opened the door. Lena burst in and quickly closed the door behind her, locking it and placing the chain on it. Stef could already tell that something must have happened. "What's wrong?"

Lena caught a look at Callie, who had now looked terrified herself after the scene her foster mother had made. Lena thought for a second and grabbed her wife by the arm and walked her into the bathroom, leaving the door wide open. She spoke low so that Callie couldn't hear, "They're here."

"Whose here?" Stef wasn't sure who Lena was referring to, and grabbed hold of her hands to stop her from trembling.

"The creeps who wrote the notes. They're following us. They said they warned us and we should've stayed home. And all of this could've been a lot easier."

"Uh…you guys?" Callie was anxious now and didn't appreciate being left out of the loop.

Stef ignored the girl, "Are you sure—"

"Stef, I saw them with my own eyes. I'm not going crazy. And one of the men came out of a silver truck. It was the same exact truck we saw when we found Callie….Oh god… I think they followed us over here."

"Okay, just relax." Stef wasn't entirely sure that Lena hadn't been hallucinating the entire scene, being that she hadn't gotten any sleep in over 36 hours.

It would have been impossible that they were followed, being that Stef checked her rearview mirror constantly just in case. She let go of Lena's hand and walked out of the bathroom, "You stay here with Callie and I—"

Lena stepped in front of her; obviously oblivious of the fact that Callie had been staring at them now. "Stef, wait! You can't go out there when—" Stef pointed her eyes at Callie for Lena, to keep from frightening the girl."

"I'll be fine, love."

"That's what you said last time, and look what happened."

Stef lowered her voice, "I wasn't prepared last time, and now I am. So, don't worry." Callie looked at both of the women strangely.

"Be careful," Lena responded as she gave Stef a peck on the lips.

Stef pointed to the door on the way out, gesturing for her to lock it. Lena peered out of the window, following her wife as she disappeared from her vision.

Callie looked dumbfounded now. "Alright, what's going on?" Lena looked back at the girl, who was still in her hospital gown chained to a bed. She looked like a patient in an insane asylum, and the secrets they were keeping from her didn't put her at ease.

"Um…nothing to worry about," Lena glanced right back out the window, seeing absolutely nothing. _Great_, she thought. She considered running out to look for her for a second, but remembered she had to keep an eye on Callie. _She better hurry._

Stef pulled her gun out of its holster as soon as she stepped outside, but the coast was clear. She slowly began walking towards the vending machines, eyeing her surroundings the entire way. When she reached the drink machine, the men under the streetlight that Lena had seen were nowhere to be found; however she saw an empty chair but no silver truck. The entire parking lot was pretty empty aside from Mike's car and 2 others that appeared to be vacant.

As she made her way to the white folding sling chair, she could see an ashtray on the armrest of it. When she took a closer look, she saw a still lit cigarette bud. Someone was definitely here within the last few minutes.

She glanced back up, hoping to catch someone hiding or running, but she wasn't that lucky. She grabbed the ashtray, pulling her sleeve over her fingers, to refrain from touching it. Then, she walked back over to the vending machines and saw the three drinks, which Lena had dropped on the ground. She placed two into her pockets, held the other in her arm, and carefully went back to the motel room.

Lena let out a sigh of relief when she saw her wife returning back. She opened the door for Stef and placed both locks on it. Stef walked in, holding the ashtray and the drink in her left arm and her gun in her other hand. She placed everything on the desk, and suddenly realized she had frightened Callie with the gun she was still holding.

Callie spoke first, refusing to break eye contact with the gun Stef had still been holding, "Uh… what was it you were saying, Lena, about having nothing to worry about?"

Stef placed the gun in her holster, as if that were the main issue here.

"We'll explain in a second," Lena responded while passing a water bottle to Callie, and then grabbing hold of Stef's arm and pulling her into the bathroom yet again.

"Well?" Lena asked.

"I don't know Lena. Whoever you saw, is certainly gone now, that's for sure."

Lena took a deep breath. "What about the truck?"

"I didn't see a truck. Just the ashtray with a cigarette bud. When we get home, I will send it to the lab, and hopefully the bastard's DNA or fingerprint is in the system and this will all be over."

"What? No! We have to call the police, Stef."

"We will, once we get back home and—"

"So, what? You want to spend the night here, when they know exactly where we are?"

"They're gone, and they know where we live anyway. We aren't going to be any safer, if we're sleep deprived and exhausted."

"What about the kids?"

"The kids will be fine. It's Callie they're after and they know where we are. They'll be as good as dead if they come through that door. Just trust me. We'll figure this all out by tomorrow," Stef responded.

Lena hated to admit it, but Stef was actually making sense. They were in no condition to drive. At this moment, they only had to worry about Callie's safety, but she would call Mike and let him know of their predicament, just in case. Both women also had to make up a story to tell Callie in the meantime.

Callie was annoyed at Stef and Lena for obviously talking about her in the bathroom. And what was the whole gun thing about? Her first instinct was that they had to be criminals of some sort.

But that wasn't even her main concern at this point. She was angry that they were treating her as a child, but worse, more like an animal. She was locked in a car, handcuffed to a bed, and being completely ignored as if she wasn't even there. _No wonder I ran away,_ she thought.

As she finished taking a sip from her water bottle something caught her eye. It was a folded piece of paper taped on the bottom of it…

**Alright. **

**So, I start classes on Monday, which means I have to get my ish together. Unfortunately, I will be updating less frequently :( (bummer! I know…) but I will try my best to do so. **

**Let me know what you guys want to see happen…**


	18. Chapter 18

**So, apparently people are still reading this. Wasn't sure if I was going to continue, because my laziness is getting the best of me. I hate school with a passion! Procrastinating at the moment, so why not write another chapter, right?**

Callie glanced at the bathroom, where Stef and Lena were still whispering away. She detached the note from the water bottle and quickly read it.

_What the hell is that supposed to mean? _she thought to herself.

As soon as the moms came out, she crumpled the note in her hand. "So…" she waited for them to tell her what was going on, before she would mention the note.

Stef spoke first, "There's nothing to worry about. Mama thought she saw someone that wasn't there. It's all taken care of. Okay?"

Stef was hoping that was the end of Callie's incessant questions.

"Why do you have a gun?"

"Because I'm a cop," she sighed. _What the hell did Callie think I was_, she thought to herself.

"Yeah right. Then, where's your badge?" Callie didn't believe her for a second.

Stef smiled, trying not to look annoyed that her foster daughter just called her a liar to her face. She grabbed her badge from her jacket pocket and handed it over.

"Uhuh… So, it was no one?" Callie asked, already knowing the answer and waiting for them to lie.

"No one," Lena smiled, trying not to worry the girl.

Callie was annoyed now, "So, why did 'no one' leave a note?" She was glad that she finally knew something that the moms didn't. Now, she had some leverage.

"What note?" Stef asked.

"If it was 'no one,' than I guess there was 'no note,'" she replied with an attitude.

"This isn't a game, Callie. What note?" Lena began.

"Really? I thought we were playing 'Hide Everything From Callie.' My mistake".

"Callie," Stef was losing her patience with the girl, and it came out in her raspy voice.

"I'll tell you what note, when you start telling me the truth," Callie stood her ground. She was going to give them a hard time, as long as they kept lying to her.

Stef and Lena looked at each other, silently debating on whether to tell Callie the truth.

But Stef's eye caught the crumpled piece of paper in Callie's hand, and she grabbed it faster than Callie could even realize what happened.

"Hey!"

Stef undid the note and read it with Lena.

**SHE BELONGS WITH US**

"…What does that mean?" Callie asked them, but both women looked just as confused as she. "Well…" She waited for an answer.

"We don't know." Stef replied.

"What do you mean you don't know? You're a cop aren't you? That note was meant for you two, right? How could you not know?...and don't lie to me."

They knew Callie wasn't going to stop asking questions until she knew what was going on. And she deserved to know. Especially if she was the one who was possibly in danger. So, they told her everything, from the slashed tires to the note at the hospital.

"So… that's why I ran away? Because these people were stalking me?" Callie asked.

The moms just looked at each other. That thought hadn't even crossed their minds.

"So, what do we do now?" Callie asked.

All of a sudden, there was a hard knock on the motel room door.

All three of them just stared at the door for a while.

"Anyone order pizza?" a man on the other side yelled.

They all sighed in relief.

All three had gotten up early the next morning and headed back home. Callie wasn't in her hospital gown anymore, being that the moms had grabbed the book bag that she left at the motel.

During the drive, Stef and Lena had tried to prepare Callie for what she was about to walk back into. Throughout the entire ride, they talked about the twins, Brandon, the quinceañera and the wedding, anything that might help trigger Callie's memory.

But, nothing they said seemed to have grabbed her attention.

As soon as they pulled in the driveway, Mariana came rushing out. She practically tackled Callie to the ground, as she came out of the car. Their hug was awkward and Callie just stood there.

"Oh, sorry. I forgot. You have no idea who I am," Mariana laughed. "Don't worry. I'll have you remembering in no time." She grabbed Callie's arm and walked her inside.

"Callie!" Jude screamed in excitement as he ran over to hug her. "I'm so sorry. I didn't mean anything I said."

"Don't worry about it, buddy. I don't remember any of it anyways," she smiled trying to cheer him up.

"Hey, Cal. You're back," Jesus hugged her as soon as Jude let go.

Brandon came running down the stairs.

"Thank god you're back," he hugged her, for a little to long she thought. "We missed you."

"Yeah…me too?" she smiled awkwardly, unsure of how to respond.

Brandon just looked at her, obviously hurt that she couldn't recognize him. The face he made, made her feel horrible, but there wasn't anything she could do.

Mike came out to the doorway and greeted her with a handshake. "Hey, it's me Mike, Brandon's dad." Callie looked at them both confused for a second but brushed it off.

"Well, I'll be upstairs if you need me," Brandon said as he made his way back upstairs quietly and slowly, like if she would all of a sudden remember who he was and stop him. Everyone watched him as he walked, obviously noticing that he was upset, except for Callie who was too busy talking to Jude.

"I got it," Stef said as she began following him.

**Okay. I have to do the whole Brandon'sconfessionthing soon, due to this Monday's episode. I don't want it to affect my made up version. Hopefully, I will update next chapter tonight, or tomorrow. Depends on how bad my writer's block gets…**

**And idk about you, but someone needs to get her memory back soon. So hopefully within the next chapter or so. **


	19. Chapter 19

Jesus quickly got in front of Stef, "You know what mom? I got this."

"What is going on?" Stef looked suspiciously at the boy, expecting him to tell the truth.

Jesus knew his mom could tell when he was lying and thought it best not to press his luck. "Nothing serious. I promise. I just think he'll be more comfortable talking to a guy about it. If that doesn't work, I'll come and get you."

Stef just nodded in agreement, being that Jesus was being so persistent. And she was surprised that he actually wanted to comfort his older brother.

Brandon was lying on his bed staring at Callie's guitar, when Jesus walked in. "Could you have been anymore obvious downstairs?" Jesus asked.

Brandon turned his head towards his brother. "Why did they say something? Did Callie say something?"

"No, but mom was about to come up here and talk to you, before I stopped her. If you keep up at this rate, they're all going to find out about you two."

Brandon raised his voice, "So? Maybe they should. Callie has no idea who I am."

"Dude, she has no idea who any of us are. You can't get mad at her for that. And you can't ruin everything because you're mad. She'll get her memory back."

"And what if she doesn't? What am I supposed to do, then? Pretend the kiss never happened? Ignore my feelings for her forever?"

"What are you even talking about? Your feelings for her?" Jesus honestly thought that the kiss wasn't that serious.

"Yes, what feelings are we talking about here," a stern voice came from behind Jesus.

Both boys just turned to look at Stef. Their jaws dropped and they just stared at her in silence.

"Jesus, can you go downstairs with everyone else. We'll be there in a minute."

Jesus did as he was told after a little hesitation. He was genuinely afraid for the conversation his brother would now have to have.

"Brandon, what feelings?" She stood at the doorway with her arms crossed, waiting for a reply.

"Um… I don't know…" he just looked at his mother, silently praying she would just drop the subject; but he knew that those chances were slim to none.

"But you guys did kiss?" Stef was trying so hard not yell, but she was still coming off a little harsh with a raspier voice than usual.

"Well…yes, but—"

"When did this happen?"

Brandon turned to face the doorway at the sound of footsteps. Lena came inside, "Hey, everything alright?"

"Not in the slightest," her wife replied. "Brandon, here, was just about to tell us when he and Callie kissed." It was obvious that she felt uncomfortable with the subject.

Brandon looked away from both moms, not wanting to look at the disappointing looks, they now both had.

"What?"

Brandon sighed. "I was going to tell you. It just was never a good time."

"When did this happen?" Stef asked again.

"On the day of the wedding," Brandon said barely audibly.

"Oh my god," Lena closed her eyes and held her hand to her forehead, feeling a headache coming on.

"So, this is why she left?... Isn't it?" Stef asked, finally understanding Callie's decision.

Brandon looked back at his moms, "Yes."

"No, it isn't," Jude's voice came from behind the moms. "She left because of me." Everyone turned around to look at Jude.

"What do you mean, Jude?" Brandon asked. "You had nothing to d—"

"I yelled at her. I told her she was selfish, and that she was going to ruin things for both of us… And then she said she wasn't going to be selfish anymore…but I just thought that meant she was going to end things with Brandon. I didn't think she would leave."

Both Lena and Stef just stared at each other unsure of what to say.

Jude started up again, "I was just mad at her because all of this reminded me of what happened with her and Liam. And I knew we were going to get kicked out all over again. I didn—"

"Who said anything about getting kicked out, Jude?" Lena asked.

"It would've happened, eventually."

"No, it wouldn't have," Stef piped in. "Jude, we wouldn't do that to either you or Callie."

"You say that now, but you're not going to let them be together," Jude replied. In his mind, he already knew what was going to happen.

"You're absolutely right," Lena added. "This was just a silly mistake. All of the emotions from the wedding must have trig—"

Brandon was shaking his head in protest, "IT WASN'T A MISTAKE! I LOVE CALLIE!"

Jude stared at Brandon and immediately left the bedroom and into his own room, slamming both doors behind him.

There was a long pause.

"Brandon, I know you may think that now, but you won't feel the same way about her in a few years," Lena spoke "… or even less. This is their lives we're talking about. You can't just ruin their chances at a life with us because of these feelings. These feelings that are only temporary." Lena hoped she was getting through to him. She knew what would happen, if she was unsuccessful.

"They are not temporary," his voice was low but still audible. He didn't want to dig himself in the hole, even deeper, or affect Jude's and Callie's chances of staying here. But after all that had already slipped out, he wasn't going to continue lying now. "If Callie could remember, she would tell you the same thing."

Stef had to jump in, "That's enough Brandon. This thing that you had with Callie, your SISTER by the way, consider it over. We are not going to discuss it anymore, I don't want to hear about it, and it will not happen again. Understood?"

Brandon took one look at her and knew better than to argue. He knew that there wasn't anything he could say that could change their minds. He'd just have to pray that Callie's memory would return, or that he'd get her to fall in love with him all over again.

In the meantime, he just nodded with acceptance and watched as Stef and Lena left the room.

**Sorry, I didn't update last night… Netflix distracted me.**

**And I can't wait for tomorrow's episode… Monday's don't suck as bad anymore. Or is it just me?**


	20. Chapter 20

Stef and Lena were back in their room, lying on their bed. They had been staring at the ceiling for a while now in silence. They were both dumbfounded by Brandon's revelation and had so much on their plate already. This just complicated things even further.

"How did we miss this?" Lena began.

"It was the day of our wedding, dear. We were a little preoccupied."

"I don't understand why he didn't tell us before… Before, on the back porch, when Callie went missing. We specifically asked him if he knew anything about Callie's disappearance, and he lied to our faces, this whole time… Do you think the twins knew?"

"I certainly hope not… But then again, we were gone a while. And we left him with Mariana, so I wouldn't be surprised."

"You're right," Lena let out a breath. "What are we going to do about it? Watch them like hawks? Not allow them to spend any time together alone?" Lena stared at her wife, awaiting a response.

"That's exactly what we're going to do. Make sure it doesn't happen again. Which shouldn't be that hard, considering the fact that Callie can't remember a thing."

"He said he loved her, Stef. What are we supposed to do? Pretend like nothing happened? Adopt Callie and Jude and let Brandon go on feeling this way?"

"Let's not get ahead of ourselves here. We still have no idea how Callie feels about all of this, and who knows if we ever will. And as for the whole adoption thing, I think Bill will put a damper on that, after all that's happened."

"Oh my god. I forgot about Bill. We have to call him back. What do we say?"

"The truth, with a little misinformation, minus the whole Callie running away. We say that we wanted to spend some time with just Callie in Arizona, she fell and hit her head, got a concussion, and ran from the hospital out of fear. So, we brought her home so that she could be with Jude." Stef didn't like the idea of lying to CPS, especially considering her profession. But she didn't like the idea of losing Callie and Jude by telling the complete truth even more.

"Okay, I'll make the call," Lena sighed.

"And I'll ask Mike to take the cigarette bud to the lab and pray there's a match in the system."

Back downstairs, Lena was ordering food from a nearby diner, being that she wasn't in the mood to cook dinner. All of the kids, except for Brandon, were sitting in the kitchen playing 21 questions with Callie.

When Stef entered the room, she gestured for Mike to follow her out the front to talk.

"Mike, can you take this to the lab for me?" she asked while pulling out a Ziploc bag with the ashtray and the cigarette bud. "I would do it myself, but—"

"You don't want to leave the kids alone. I get it." He grabbed the bag from Stef's hand. "Are you sure this is belongs to them?"

"Positive."

"What happened, Stef? These people followed you all the way to Arizona? What the hell is it that they want?" Mike's anger was showing on his face.

"That's what I'm trying to figure out. They left another note, and I think they must've been the one's to hurt Callie, before we found her," Stef said, her eyes beginning to water and she bent her head down in an effort to hide her tears.

Mike lifted her chin with his hand, "Hey. Don't worry. I won't let anything bad happen to any of you. I promise."

Stef looked back at him and nodded her head, "Good. Because I don—"

Before Stef could finish her sentence, Mike pulled his face in and kissed her. At that exact moment, the front door swung open. Unfortunately for them, Mariana was now face to face with both Stef and Mike and she just stared, jaw open and all, at the two.

Stef pushed Mike away as fast as she could, "Mariana."

Mariana found her voice, "Mama wants to know what you want from the diner." She crossed her arms. "But you're obviously too busy with your tongue down Mike's throat to answer." With that, she slammed the front door and stomped upstairs to her room.

Stef gave Mike a dirty look, "What the hell was that, Mike?"

"I don't know. I got caught up in the moment. I'm sorry."

"You're sorry?"

"It didn't mean anything," Mike knew that he was lying. He wanted to kiss Stef, every chance he got alone with her, and the few drinks he had prior to their arrival didn't help the situation.

"You're drunk." Stef looked at Mike with disbelief. "I cannot believe I ask you to watch the kids for one day, and you cant even stay sober for that. And now this."

"I'm not drunk, Stef."

"Really? Is that why I now have the taste of bourbon in my mouth." Stef spit out onto the grass in disgust.

"Okay, Stef. I had one or two drinks. I'm sorry." He began to walk to his car with the Ziploc bag still in hand.

Stef turned around and opened the front door. Lena was standing there, "Hey did Mariana come and ask you what you wanted from the diner?"

"Yes. I have to talk with you about that."

"I thought you left, so I ordered the usual. Is that okay?"

Stef let out a deep breath. "Yes. But Mike—"

Before their conversation could continue, the sound of glass shattering stopped them.

"MOMS!" Jesus called from the kitchen.

**Last episode was insane…. Was anyone else pissed by Stef and Lena's decision? After they explained it, it kinda made sense, but I was still a little mad. And next episode looks great, but why would someone put a restraining order on Brandon? His ass is going to get arrested for sure…lol**

**Btw, what should I do about the Brandon/ Callie situation? Should they get together, should they not? What do you guys prefer? I'm getting mixed feedback here… Let me know.**


	21. Chapter 21

At Jesus's voice, Stef and Lena went running towards the kitchen.

"What happened?" Lena asked, throwing her hands up in the hair and staring at the now obvious hole through their kitchen window.

Jesus was picking up a somewhat large rock from the floor. And Stef began looking out of the window, in hopes of catching whoever threw it. And to no surprise, there wasn't anyone in sight.

Brandon and Mariana must've rushed downstairs at the sound of the shattering glass. Mariana looked at Lena, already assuming that she must've flipped out about the kiss and punched the window herself.

"There's a note," Jesus said while detaching the piece of paper from the rock. Callie shared a frightened look with the moms.

Stef grabbed the piece of paper from Jesus's hand and read it silently with Lena. Stef's gaze turned from the note, to the kitchen table. It was obvious her mind was elsewhere, but the kids just stared at her with curiosity.

"Everyone, up to your rooms," Lena ordered. But they all looked at each other with obvious confusion on their faces. "NOW!"

Everyone except Callie jumped at the sudden rise in Lena's pitch. Lena rarely yelled and never as loud as she just had.

Mariana grabbed Callie's arm, "Come on."

Callie just shook her head no.

"I really think you should —"

"I want to stay."

Mariana reluctantly walked to her room without her.

After everyone else left Callie asked, "What does it say?"

"You should head upstairs too, Callie," Lena gestured for the girl to leave the room. Stef walked over to the house phone and began calling the police.

"What? No. If it's about me, then I deserve to know."

"We're taking care of it. Please, just go upstairs."

Callie just turned her attention to Stef's phone conversation, in hopes of hearing the contents of the note. Unfortunately for Callie, the sudden silence was a queue for Stef to lower her voice to a whisper.

"Seriously?"

"We don't want you to worry about it, Callie. We'll take care of it," Lena tried to assure her.

"Like you've been taking care of it this entire time." Callie walked up to Stef, who was unaware of Callie's presence behind her. Callie read the note over her shoulder.

**GIVE HER UP NOW **

**AND NOBODY GETS HURT**

"What the hell?" Callie mumbled.

Stef turned around at the sound of Callie's voice. "Get here as fast as you can, please….Thank you," she spoke on the phone.

"The police are on their way. They'll handle this. Go upstairs and hang out with Mariana, and we'll take care of the rest."

"They aren't going to catch them. You're probably endangering everyone in this house for no reason. And you have no clue who this could be."

"It's not for no reason and we have a hunch. But we aren't sure," Stef replied.

"Well, then who?"

"We were thinking, maybe Liam."

"Who?"

Stef and Lena shared a nervous look, and Stef suddenly regretted mentioning his name. They were most definitely not going to remind her of Liam now, especially if there was a chance she could completely forget about him.

The doorbell rang at just the right time.

"That was fast," Lena said, while looking at Stef.

"Callie, go upstairs," Stef said, while grabbing her arm. Callie was going to listen to her, whether she had to drag her upstairs herself.

Once they both reached the girls' room, Stef looked at Mariana, who was sitting on her bed using her laptop. "Keep her here for a while. Don't either of you leave this room," Stef ordered.

Mariana rolled her eyes. The last thing she wanted to do was take orders from a liar. Mariana's attitude didn't go unnoticed by her mom, "We'll talk about what happened later, Mariana. Now's not the time." She began to close the door behind her.

"But it was a good time before with Mike, right?"

Stef opened the door back up, "Mariana, you don't know what—"

"What really happened? Oh, please. I know what I saw."

The doorbell rang again.

Stef looked extremely frustrated with her daughter, "This conversation going to have to wait."

"Of course it does."

"HEY! I am still your mother and nothing gives you the right to talk to me like this, young lady."

"My mother? Yeah, okay…" Mariana quickly regretted her comment she made. Especially after seeing the hurt in her mother's face. But she had so much anger built up, that she couldn't apologize right now. She just turned her gaze toward her computer screen.

The doorbell rang again.

Stef reluctantly ran back downstairs to answer the door. Lena just stood there nervously, wondering what took her wife so long.

To their surprise, it was not the police, but a young man. He looked to be in his early twenties and was holding a big brown paper bag in his arm. Both women just stared at him, unsure of what he was doing at their doorstep.

"Did someone here order food?" he asked with hesitation, as he glanced back at the number of the house.

Lena snapped out of it, "Oh my God. I completely forgot about that. I'll be right back." She ran to the living room to grab her purse.

Back upstairs, Callie was staring out the window and was surprised she didn't see any police cars. _Who the heck was at the door?_ she thought to herself. A minute later, a young man in a navy blue hoodie walk away from the house.

It was right then and there, that everything started coming back to her. Someone in a navy blue hoodie helped her when she was being attacked. She never saw his face, but somehow she knew it was the same guy who was leaving her house. _Did he kill Jack?_ she asked herself.

Her stunned face didn't go unnoticed.

"What happened?" Mariana asked, walking over to the window to see what she was looking at. "Do you know him?"

"Yes, I think so. He looks just like the guy who helped me in Arizona."

"Helped you with what?" They both watched as the guy got in his car and drove off.

"Um… It's complicated."

Mariana smiled, "Oh my God. Did you get your memory back?"

Callie nodded, suddenly wishing that she hadn't remembered anything.

Mariana quickly hugged her, "Thank God. I wasn't too fond of Clueless Callie. This is perfect! Now, you can tell me what to do about Stef." Mariana wasn't about to waste any time.

"Yeah, you were pretty mean to her before. What happened?" she asked confused.

"She deserved it. Look, don't say anything but… I saw her and Mike in a lip lock."

"What?" Callie asked, unsure of whether she heard her foster sister correctly.

"I know, right? Now, I don't know what to do. Part of me wants to tell Lena, and the other part of me thinks I should keep my mouth shut. I don't want to keep something like this from her, but I'm afraid of what would happen if I tell… I mean, it's no secret that Lena feels uncomfortable about Stef being around Mi—""

"Slow down, Mariana. Are you sure that's what you saw."

"You too? What's not to be sure about? I opened the front door and there they were. Mike's mouth pressed against hers. AND they stopped as soon as they saw me. What does that sound like to you? And then, she tells me, you didn't see what happened. Like I'm stupid or something…"

"Wow. I don't even know how to answer that."

"I hate her for this."

"Take it from me, she probably hates herself more."

A few seconds later, someone knocked on their bedroom door. Brandon spoke, "Callie, can I talk to you for a second?

…

**So, most of you opted for NO BRALLIE, which dare I say it, is exactly what I'm going to do in this story. You're making this 10x harder for me, but your reasons are valid and I asked for your opinions, so my fault. Lol.**

**Maybe, I'll make the next story I write a Brallie to make up for it. Who knows? And I've gotten some interesting guesses on the one/s writing the notes. Can't give up the answer just yet, but it will all come out soon enough, if that helps.**


	22. Chapter 22

Callie looked at Brandon and thought to herself, _Oh crap! Couldn't he have given me a little more time?_ She glanced back at Mariana, hoping that she would say something to keep her from the conversation she would have to have with Brandon right now, like 'Mom told me not to let you leave the room, remember?' but that didn't happen.

Mariana smiled, "You should go. I'm pretty sure you two have lots to talk about anyways." She grabbed Callie's arm and practically pushed her out of the room.

_Thanks Mariana_, Callie thought.

She hesitantly began walking to Brandon's room. She didn't know what to do? _What if he asks me if my memory returned? Should I lie to avoid the conversation completely or should I tell him the truth and ruin everything? Should I lie to them all about my memory returning just to avoid taking responsibility for all of the mistakes I made? That sounds so much easier. But wouldn't that just make things all the more worse? Why did he have to pick the exact moment when I start to remember, to have this conversation?_

He opened his bedroom door and gestured for Callie to sit on the bed. She did, and it didn't help the situation that he sat close enough to her that their legs were touching.

She shifted over slightly away from him and he couldn't help but notice.

"Look Callie, I know that you don't remember anything, but I feel like I need to tell you the truth."

"Brandon—" she interrupted.

"No, let me finish," Brandon said while placing his hand on her thigh, making her feel slightly uncomfortable. "I know that things are complicated right now and I know that this might complicate things even further, but I can't keep quiet about it. I can't pretend like it didn't happen, which is what everyone wants me to do—"

"Everyone like who?" Callie asked horrified.

"My moms and—"

"YOU TOLD STEF AND LENA!" She quickly removed his hand from her leg.

Brandon looked ashamed for a second, but then realized that she knew what he was talking about, "Wait a minute... YOU REMEMBER WHAT HAPPENED? YOU MADE IT ALL UP AND PRETENDED TO FORGET ABOUT ME?"

Callie began to shush him to keep everyone else from barging in on their already awkward conversation, "No, I got my memory back just a little while ago."

"THAT'S GREAT!" He stood up and began walking over toward the door, "Now, we can just tell moms how we really feel, and—"

"Brandon, no."

"What do you mean no?"

"I mean we can't tell them how we really feel, if you don't know how I feel," she replied, refusing to make eye contact with him and staring straight at his piano.

"What do you mean? You kissed me and—"

"I know," Callie interrupted. "But a lot has happened since then, and I'm not sure this is a good idea anymore. I mean… it was never a good idea, but—"

"Did moms say something to you?"

"No, that's not it," she shook her head.

"Let me guess… Wyatt?" Brandon was angry now, at the sudden image of Callie and Wyatt hooking up on their trip to Indiana.

"No," Callie replied, staring Brandon straight in the eye, so that he knew she wasn't lying about that.

"THEN, WHAT IS IT?"

Callie was taken by surprise by his reaction. She knew he wouldn't be happy with her decision, but she never thought he'd be this angry by it. "I don't want to do this anymore because of me… Brandon, I thought I was running away for Jude and because I had feelings for you but the truth is, I did it for me. I tried to convince myself that I loved you, so that I could have a valid reason to leave. Loving you meant that I would have to leave to keep Jude from getting kicked out. It was just easier to think that, than to admit that I was scared."

"Scared of what?"

Callie couldn't help but tear up, "…of all of this… of accepting all of you as my family, of accepting this house as my home, of accepting… something so permanent. I've always told myself and Jude, not to get too comfortable anywhere, because I know all too well that everything can get ripped away from us in a second. And what did I do? I got comfortable here. And before I knew it, I was trying to ruin it before it ruined me. But it didn't work, because somehow Stef and Lena brought me right back here anyway, and it made me realize that I don't want to leave… Brandon, I'm so sorry for what I did, and I didn't really understand what I was doing until now." She grabbed Brandon's hand but he quickly snatched it back.

"So, you used me?" His eyes became teary too.

"I didn't mean to. Brandon, I care about you a lot, but I care about all of you. I don't want to jeopardize everything just because I made a mistake. A mistake that I know I will pay the price for, for years and years to come. I shouldn't have ever involved you in this and I won't ever forgive myself for it. I know that you're angry with me, but please don't hate me," Brandon sat back down on the bed next to Callie, and she leaned over and cried on his shoulder. Brandon reluctantly put his arms around her, in an attempt to comfort her.

"I could never hate you Callie. I love you too much, and if this is what you really want, then I'll accept it for what it is. I'm not saying it won't be tough for me though, but we'll get though this. Okay?"

Callie nodded and couldn't help but smile.

He smiled too, glad that she was no longer crying. "I'm pretty sure I'll love to be your brother."

Callie was glad that he understood her choice and was taking it so well.

Now, the conversation she would have to have with Stef and Lena was still unforeseen.

**Okay, so I tried my best to transform their romantic relationship, into a more brotherly/sister type one, which is what most of you wanted.**

**Which btw, I think I did a pretty good job at, or maybe it's just the liquor talking… Yes I'm drunk at the moment. It helps my creativity.**

**But on a more serious note, these two aren't going to have these little heart-to-hearts every chapter, so don't worry Brallie haters, I'll stick to my word.**

**However, I just began writing a new story "**_**Someone Else," **_**which will eventually make up for making this a non-Brallie story. **

**See, I try to make shit happen. Lol**

**Please Review, even if it's to tell me to lay off the alcohol because this chapter sucked… **


	23. Chapter 23

Callie and Brandon began walking down the stairs as she heard the voices of two uniformed police officers asking Stef and Lena questions. They sat at the bottom of the staircase, so that they wouldn't be seen.

Stef and Lena's plan was to tell the police about all of the notes, except the first one. They thought that since the first one indicated that Callie was "lost", it was best not to clue them in on the fact that she ran away.

A man's voice began, "When did you get the first note?"

"At the hospital," Lena spoke. "We were inside the room with Callie, and when we walked out, the note was taped on a vase with a bouquet of roses."

"Right the hospital… May I ask why you left the hospital in the first place? You're daughter was supposed to be kept a few days for observation, after suffering a concussion. Am I correct? And why didn't you call the police right then and there, when you received the first threat?" the same man continued, writing notes down on a small pad.

Lena looked at Stef, since she knew this would come back at their expense.

Stef felt her wife staring at her, but didn't want to appear nervous. Nervousness was a sign of the guilty. She quickly answered, "Callie seemed fine, all else aside, and she had run from the hospital just before. She was confused after the entire accident, and she made it clear that she wasn't going to cooperate with us if we forced her to stay there. The only person she could remember was her brother Jude, so we thought it'd be best to bring her home to see him. If we hadn't left, I'm pretty sure she would have left the hospital anyway."

"How are you so sure? Has she ever run from here or any other foster homes before this one?" the other man spoke.

"Not that we know of," Stef lied. "But she was in such a traumatic state, that we thought being around so many strangers would make things worse for her. And she had just escaped the hospital once, we were not going to give her a chance to do it again."

"So, you thought you knew what was best for her? You thought you knew better than a doctor? A professional that was highly trained to deal with these types of situations? That's quite interesting… Mam, didn't you also leave your foster daughter alone in another state? You said she had bruises on her face prior to the fall, correct? Isn't it plausible that she was attacked, after being left alone by you too? …And you STILL thought that you knew what was best for her?"

Silence filled the room.

Callie couldn't believe that this had turned into such a big mess. She wanted to walk over to the police officers and tell them the truth, but that would probably make everything worse. That would prove that the moms failed to notify Bill the moment Callie went missing, which would jeopardize Jude's chances of staying here. That would prove that both moms lied to keep Callie from going back to juvie, which could probably endanger Stef's carrer and maybe even Lena's.

She didn't want to admit it, but she was angry at them for not calling Bill. _If they had done that, none of this would be happening. I would probably be in Indiana with Wyatt, Jude would be fine and everyone else's life wouldn't have turned upside down so fast._

"What kind of truck are we talking about here? Did you see the man who took off in it as soon as you found Callie?" the other man asked.

"It was a silver tundra truck, not sure what year. And no we didn't see him," Stef answered in a raspy voice. These men where making both moms feel like crap, and even though they knew that it wasn't their fault, they couldn't help but feel guilty. Both women knew that Callie would have been safe, if they hadn't decided to take maters into their own hands.

"So, you two have no idea what he was doing there, and why he left the scene?" One of the officers was being harsher than the other. He was asking them questions and accusing them at the same time.

The other officer felt bad and calmly continued, "Do you believe that the guy who attacked her is the same person as the one who has been leaving the notes and vandalizing your property?"

"It's possible," Lena said.

Callie walked into the living room and Brandon followed suit. Everyone stared at her, and the police officers realized who she was, by the healing bruises on her face.

"Callie, go back—"Stef started.

"Can I talk to you two for a second?" she asked, while staring at Stef and Lena.

"Can it wait? We're in the middle of something," Lena said, while staring at the police officers, who were now looking suspiciously at all three of them.

"No."

Both moms reluctantly walked into the kitchen, while Callie followed.

"What is it?" Stef asked. She was somewhat glad that Callie ignored her orders to stay upstairs, being that their complaint against the people threatening her family had turned into an interrogation against them.

Callie sat down on one of the stools. "Um… whoever wrote the note isn't the one who attacked me," she looked down to avoid from having to look at them.

Lena stared at Stef, and they both thought the same thing and sat down across from her.

"Callie, did you get your memory back?" Stef asked in a soft voice. She placed her hand on Callie's, to let her know that it was okay to answer honestly.

Callie knew what would happen if she told the truth. She would have to explain everything, the kiss with Brandon, the reason she left, the hitchhiking, and the attack. But, someone could get hurt if she kept quiet and she wasn't willing to take that chance.

She just stared at both women without speaking, letting her silence answer the question for her.

"How do you know he isn't the same guy?" Stef asked. She had so many questions for her, but now wasn't the time. The police officers were expecting them back any second

"Because, I don't think he would've been stupid enough to keep contacting me."

"How do you mean?" Stef asked.

Callie stayed silent and pulled her hand away from Stef's grasp.

"Is this about the hitchhiking?" she asked. Callie's eyes widened as she looked up at her.

"We already know about that," Lena included. "And we aren't very happy about it, but you have to be honest with us."

"That's the only way we are going to catch this guy, so please don't leave anything out now," Stef added.

"Um…" Callie knew what she had to do. "…While the guy was trying to, um…while I was being attacked, another guy came and pulled him off of me. He told me to run, and I could hear him beating the crap out of him. I kept hearing the man screaming, saying he was sorry and begging for his life—"

Both women became glassy-eyed as she spoke.

"What do you mean you were being attacked?" Lena spoke.

"What did these men look like?" Stef asked.

Callie ignored Lena's question, hoping it would just go away. "The one guy was average looking, light-skin, brown hair, a little old, like in his 40's or something. I didn't get a good look at the guy who saved me. He had his back turned to me the entire time and a navy blue hoodie was covering his head… kind of like the guy who just left here…" She glanced back up at them, as they considered the possibility that he was the same man.

A few minutes later, they'd decided to share this information with the police.

To keep the questions to a minimum, Callie pretended to only remember bits and pieces of what happened in Arizona. She admitted to getting into the car with a stranger, but couldn't fully remember why. She told them the details about the attack, while the moms stood by. She didn't want to have them listen to it twice.

Just as the policemen where about to leave, Stef's cell rang. "Hey, Mike. I hope you have good news," she asked in a low voice.

"Uh…yes and no, Stef."

Stef's eyebrows furrowed.

"Good news is there was a match in the system."

"…And the bad?"

"You're not going to be too happy with the result..."

**Oh snap. It's about to get even crazier in the Foster household, if that's even possible.**

**Any guesses as to who this person/s is/are? **


	24. Chapter 24

**Sorry, I couldn't update as fast as I would have liked. I've been really busy and had to update on my other story as well. **

**Surprisingly, only one person guessed right to the mystery guy and that person was Dobrevu. Good job. I didn't think anyone would figure it out. **

**But to everyone else, don't feel bad. If I weren't the writer, I probably wouldn't have either, lol.**

_**Previously: Just as the policemen where about to leave, Stef's cell rang. "Hey, Mike. I hope you have good news," she asked in a low voice.**_

_"**Uh…yes and no, Stef."**_

_**Stef's eyebrows furrowed.**_

_"**Good news is there was a match in the system."**_

_"…**And the bad?"**_

_"**You're not going to be too happy with the result..."**_

"Hold on one second," Stef told the police officers as she took the phone into the kitchen."

Once she entered, she whispered, "Let me guess. Liam?"

"No, it's not Liam."

"Then who?"

"Stef…"

She raised her voice, annoyed by his stalling, "For God sake Mike—"

"It's a Donald Jacob. He was in the system and was released a little over a year ago."

Stef froze when she heard the name. "Her father? But… why?"

"I don't know Stef…"

Stef quickly whipped herself around at the sound of footsteps coming from behind her. It was Lena.

"Is that Mike?" she asked anxiously.

"Yes, hon. Mike, let me call you back."

"Well?"

"The cigarette belonged to Callie's father." Stef concluded quietly.

"What? But how—"

"Mike confirmed it, hon." Stef grabbed a beer from the fridge, opened it, and took a sip.

"Oh my God," Lena mumbled. "What about the other guy? There was another person with him at the motel."

"A friend? I don't know… Maybe the man that helped Callie?"

"AND WHAT? THEY THINK THEY CAN JUST TAKE HER BACK? ENDAGER ALL OF OUR KIDS?" she managed to whisper and yell at the same time.

"I don't know, Lena." Stef was angry too, but tried to keep her emotions in check. The policemen were in the living room, and she didn't want them to hear either of them rattled. Not to mention, have Callie or Jude overhear the conversation. She still wasn't sure if telling them was a good idea.

"We have to tell the police," Lena stated firmly. Stef wasn't going to sway her into keeping this a secret from the police too. They already withheld so much information, which dug them into a giant pit of lies. She knew that any more lies would surely dig them deep enough, that there would be no chance of escaping.

"I know… Don't worry about it. I'll tell them. I'll send Callie to you, and you can distract her."

* * *

After the police left, Stef walked back into the kitchen to meet with Lena and Callie. "They are going to take care of everything," she tried to comfort both of them, even though she wasn't entirely sure they wouldn't be useless.

"Okay, good…" Callie started to get up to make her way back upstairs, but Lena grabbed her arm and pulled her right back down on the stool.

"Oh, no no no. We still haven't talked about what happened."

"We just talked."

"Not about why you left. You didn't think that just because you lost your memory, you weren't going to have to talk about it."

Callie hated herself at this moment. Why had she gone and admitted that her memory returned. She looked away from both of them, "What about it?"

"Seriously, Callie?" Stef asked rhetorically.

Callie nodded her head.

"Your silence isn't going to make this go away," Lena spoke. "We're prepared to sit here with you all night, until you feel like talking about it." She sat down across from her and folded her hands on the table.

Stef did the same. "And all day tomorrow. And the day after that, and the day after that—"

"OKAY. I get it," Callie took a deep breath and let it out. "Well, you already know what happened with Brandon…"

"No, what happened with Brandon?" Stef asked seriously.

Callie's face went blank, "Uh…"

Lena hit Stef on the arm, "Stef. She's kidding."

Stef smiled as she tried to hide her laughter, "Sorry, I couldn't help myself. Did you see her face? Priceless."

Callie faked laughed, while trying to hide her nervousness. "So, um…I didn't know why I did it at first. You know, kissed him. I wanted to love him. I thought that loving him would be a good enough reason to leave, before it didn't work out."

"How do you mean?" Lena asked, unable to hide the confused look on her face.

"I wanted to ruin my chances here. I knew that if I you both saw Brandon and me together; you wouldn't want me in your house. Especially after the whole Liam thing. I figured you would realize that I was the problem… I wanted to be the problem. So I convinced myself that I loved him, and then Jude reminded me that we were a package deal… I didn't want to jeopardize Jude's chances here too, so I left."

Both women were in tears, trying hard to wrap around what the girl in front of them had just confessed.

Stef spoke up, "Why would you want to ruin your chances here? Do you not like it here? Did someone do something to make you f—"

"No, that's not it." Callie interrupted.

"Then what is it?"

"I do like it here," Callie had tears in her eyes now.

"I don't understand?" Lena added.

"I know… I've always told myself and Jude, not to get too comfortable anywhere. And that's exactly what I did. It was easier to get away from everything, than to wait for this not to work out. It never does. Everything always gets ruined somehow, and its mostly my fault. I figured that this way, I would save myself the trouble of getting hurt. And Jude would have a better chance, if he didn't have me bringing him down the whole time."

Lena got up and placed an arm around Callie, "Honey, nothing you can do would ruin yours or Jude's chances here. You can't just leave whenever you want, because you're afraid. Doing that isn't going to do any good for you or for Jude. You don't want to teach him that he can run from his problems. "

Stef stood up and walked over to her too. "And that wasn't a decision for you to make. It affected all of us, Callie." She grabbed her chin, so that Callie would stop averting her gaze and look in her eyes. "We promise you that we aren't going to change our minds about either of you. We aren't like the other foster homes you've been in. You can't turn your back on all of us, because you're afraid we're going to turn our backs on you. We can assure you that will never happen because we love you both. And if all of this doesn't prove that to you, then tell us what will."

Callie hugged Stef after her speech, which surprised them all. "I'm so sorry about everything. About ruining your honeymoon, and not trusting you, and—"

"And calling me a crazy bitch?" Stef laughed.

Callie backed away as she remembered what happened after they left the hospital.

"Um… maybe the bitch part was a little harsh. But you did handcuff me to the bed…" she smiled. "…But I didn't mean any of the other stuff."

"We know," Lena continued. "Just don't let it ever happen again. Any of it. The next time you're feeling like that, please come to us. Or, if you feel you can't come to us, go to Mariana or Brandon or anyone for that matter."

"Oh, this won't happen again. Promise. And I will, thanks." Callie hugged Lena before lost her chance. She let go of her and turned to face Stef, "And I think you should probably finish that conversation with Mariana. You left her a little confused."

"What conversation?" Lena looked at her wife and then at Callie.

"I'll tell you about it later. Talking to Mariana would probably be easier first."

Lena watched suspiciously as her wife left the kitchen.


	25. Chapter 25

Mariana was sitting cross-legged on her bed, when she heard footsteps coming up the stairs. _Hurry up, _Lexi_!_ she thought to herself. She had just texted her best friend for advice, regarding what to do about the Mike and Stef situation. A few seconds later, she heard a knock on her bedroom door and knew it was her mother. _Maybe if I ignore it she'll go away._

She heard the door peer open slightly, so that Stef could poke her head in, "Mariana. Can we talk?"

"I'd much rather not," Mariana replied nonchalantly.

Stef walked inside and closed the door behind her anyway. "Yeah, I was trying to make you feel like you had an option, but ya don't," Stef responded as she sat at the foot of Mariana's bed.

Mariana rolled her eyes. _Then, why the hell ask,_ she thought to herself, as she kept staring at her Iphone's screen in desperation. _Anytime now, Lexi._

"What you saw before wasn't at all what you thought it was."

"Are you serious?" she asked annoyed. "Do you wanna think about that statement for a second, and come back to me….like seriously think about it."

"Mariana—" Stef was trying so hard not to lose her patience with the girl.

"Are you going to tell Mama about it, or should I? Because I'm not keeping this from her." Mariana shocked herself by the decision she just realized she made.

"I'm going to tell her about it, Sweets," Stef replied, and Mariana looked at her in surprise. "And for the record, Mike kissed me. I did NOT kiss him back. You know I wouldn't do that to Mama, or to any of you."Stef's voice cracked at the end.

Mariana was beginning to believe her mother, "But, why would he do that? What's wrong with him?"

"He was drunk. People do stupid things when they're drunk."

"Like kiss their lesbian ex-wife?"

Stef chuckled at Mariana's comment, even though she knew it wasn't all that funny, "Yes, like kiss their lesbian ex-wife… But I would have never asked you to keep this from Mama. Is that what you really thought I came to talk to you about?"

Mariana could tell that Stef felt hurt, "No, I don't know. Kinda? I was just so mad at you, that I already assumed the worse. I didn't want to believe that you would cheat on Mama, but after seeing you two… I just figured, I didn't know anything about you at all."

"Well, I will promise you that nothing like this will ever happen again. I wont let it."

"Good… And you don't have to tell if you don't want to. I believe you."

Stef grabbed Mariana's shoulder and pulled her into a hug and kissed her forehead. "I do though. All of these secrets are tearing our family apart."

"I've noticed… And I'm sorry for you know?"

"Not believing me? Accusing me?"

"Yeah, all of that."

Stef took a deep breath, "Well, I can't say I would have reacted any different… But if you ever do that again without letting me explain, consider yourself grounded until the end of time," she replied as she gave Mariana a stern look.

"Gotcha." Mariana laughed as she hugged her mother back.

* * *

Back downstairs, Callie was helping Lena in the kitchen preparing dinner. She was stirring something on the stove, while Lena was rinsing off some lettuce.

Lena stopped when heard her phone's text tone, and dried her hands on a hand towel. She removed the phone from her back pocket, and saw that she'd received a message from an unknown number. _What the hell?_ she thought to herself.

When she clicked on the message to open it, she was stunned by what she saw. It was a photo of Stef and Mike kissing on the front porch and attached to the photo was a message stating:

**You pathetic woman.**

**Even Mariana knows what's been happening **

**right under your nose.**

**Guess your family isn't **

**as perfect as you thought it was.**

Callie turned around and got a glimpse of Lena's face. An automatic look of concern appeared on hers, "You okay?"

But Lena hadn't taken her eyes off her phone or even heard Callie's question.

That one photo caused her heart to shatter into a million pieces at once. She wanted to scream, to break something, to hit someone, but she couldn't move. She couldn't take her eyes off that photo.

"Lena?" Callie called.

Still, she received no response.

Callie walked over to her and put her arm on her shoulder, "Lena?"

Lena just stared blankly up at her.

"Who's it from?" Callie asked. She already had a feeling it was from whoever kept trying to torture them.

Lena finally came to, "Um… it's nothing," she replied, but her tear-filled eyes said otherwise. "I just forgot something in the car. Can you keep on eye on this while I go get it?"

"Sure," Callie replied, not believing a word her foster mother was saying. For one thing, Mike had taken back his car, so even if she forgot something in it, she wouldn't be able to retrieve it.

She just shook her head as Lena walked out of the kitchen.

* * *

Lena stepped outside and began pacing on the front porch, trying to figure out what to do. All of this was too overwhelming for her to deal with. And now the only person who she thought she could talk to, was betraying her in the worst way imaginable.

Stef stepped outside after Callie told Lena where she went, "Hey babe, can I talk to you for a minute?"

After seeing Lena's face she asked, "What's wrong?"

Lena laughed in disbelief and stayed silent for a second afterwards. "How could you?"

"Did Callie say something t—"

"SHE DIDN'T HAVE TO!" Lena shouted as she shoved her cell phone into Stef's hand and walked inside, slamming the door behind her.

Stef looked down at Lena's phone to the open text message of the photo…

* * *

**Oh snap! If only Stef would've come clean to Lena before talking to Mariana.**

**It's a shame, really. Lol**

**Even I felt horrible for doing this to Lena, but it had to be done.**

**Is anyone still reading this, btw? Let me know. **

**I'd be more inclined to update sooner…**


	26. Chapter 26

**Previously: **

** Stef stepped outside after Callie told Lena where she went, "Hey babe, can I talk to you for a minute?"**

** After seeing Lena's face she asked, "What's wrong?"**

** Lena laughed in disbelief and stayed silent for a second afterwards. "How could you?"**

** "Did Callie say something t—"**

** "SHE DIDN'T HAVE TO!" Lena shouted as she shoved her cell phone into Stef's hand and walked inside, slamming the door shut behind her.**

** Stef looked down at Lena's phone to the open text message of the photo…**

* * *

Stef couldn't believe that someone had been watching her every move this entire time. From the looks of it, the picture was taken right across the street from them, but there wasn't even a car in sight.

_Was Callie and Jude's father really that desperate to get his children back that he would tear their entire family apart in the process? _

_Was his plan actually working?_

Stef gripped her wife's phone so hard that she cracked the screen with her thumb. She walked over and opened the front door, looking for her wife.

"Lena!" she called as she ran towards their bedroom. When she got in, she saw that their bathroom door was shut but the light was on. So someone was definitely in there. As she got closer, she heard soft sobs coming from the other side of the door. "Lena, please open the door. We have to talk about this. It's not what it looked like. I was going to tell you, honey. I really was… I can't keep talking to the door, love. Please let me explain."

There was a long silence, and seconds later the bathroom doorknob began to twist. The door opened slowly, until Lena appeared before her. She just stared confusingly at her wife, which caused Stef's heart to drop at the sight. Her face was wet with tears, which didn't appear to dry anytime soon.

"Lena—"

"How could you do this? And with Mike? God, I thought I was so stupid to feel jealous every time he came around. But now…"

Stef's eyes began to water now, "No baby, YOU ARE NOT STUPID," she yelled.

"Do you still love him?" Lena asked, not sure she really wanted to know the answer.

Stef grabbed hold of Lena's arms, but Lena quickly pushed Stef's hands away. "NO! I swear to God Lena, I do not love him."

"Is that why you covered for him? When he shot Ana's boyfriend, you covered for him? Did you not?" Lena crossed her arms waiting for a reply.

"Lena, that's not fair. He is Brandon's father. I couldn't let him go to jail for a mistake he made, trying to protect me."

"A mistake? Was that kiss a mistake too?" Lena's anger was taking over, and tears were no longer forming in her eyes. She wiped her face with her hands.

"Mike was drunk, and I pushed him away right afterwards. I did nothing wrong, Lena. You have to believe me."

At that exact moment, Stef's cell phone began to ring, Lena looked down to where she had the phone on her belt clip. The screen light up with Mike's name, and Lena glared at Stef. Stef looked down at it and silenced the volume, so that they could finish.

"Oh, don't not answer on my account," Lena said sarcastically as she began walking out of the room.

"LENA, DON'T WALK AWAY FROM ME!"

"WHY NOT?" she yelled back, turning around to look at Stef.

"Is this really how you're going to be? You're not even going to listen to me?"

"I thought that's what I've been doing? What the hell is this to you?"

"NO! YOU'RE NOT LISTENING! YOU'RE LETTING HIM WIN!" Stef lowered her voice, "Don't you see what's happening here?"

"What the hell are you talking about, Stef? This isn't about letting anyone win. This is about you kissing another man, your ex-husband to be exact."

"HE KISSED ME!" Stef yelled, slamming her fist into the mirror of their vanity. "SHIT!" she yelled out in pain covering up her hand with the other. They both watched the mirror shatter in even more pieces as it fell onto the ground.

Lena stared at her wife with what looked to be fear in her eyes. She had never seen her wife look so angry, and at her nonetheless. She looked up at the point of impact in the mirror, and saw the blood stains that Stef left behind. Lena's face softened as she walked over to check on her wife's hand, but Stef pushed passed her and locked herself into the bathroom.

Lena followed right behind her, but the door slammed in her face before she could get in. "Stef," she called as she leaned her head against the door and heard the water faucet begin to run.

"Lena, please stay away from me right now. I don't want you to see me like this."

"Then don't behave like this…Look, I'm sorry I didn't believe you. It's just….Mike makes me so crazy sometimes. And I know that's not an excuse. Just please open the door, so we can talk about it." Lena heard the faucet shut off and the door open.

Stef tried to hide a smile from forming on her face, "Well, now who's graveling?"

Lena smiled at Stef's comment, "I'm not graveling per se. I was just…"

"Just about to stop talking," Stef finished for her as she silenced her wife with a kiss.

Lena pulled back, "Your hand, Stef?"

"Will still be there when we're done," she spat back pushing her wife back, onto bed and falling on top of her.

* * *

**Okay, sorry I don't write sex scenes. (Too Awkward…) This is as close as it's going to get :p**

**But at least they're not mad at each other any more :)**

**But when Plan A. doesn't work, Plan B takes over. Will Callie and Jude's father come back for what he wants? And will he get it? Whatever that is…**

**Next chapter will help determine that.**


	27. Chapter 27

**Okay, I know I haven't updated in a while, but I've been really busy and suffering from some serious writer's block. Normally it'll take me like a couple of hours to write these chapters but this one took like a week for some reason. I'm back though nonetheless :)**

* * *

After listening in on the argument between Stef and Lena, all of the children descended into different rooms. They had been eavesdropping on the two of them during the fight, but stopped when they realized things were finally cooling down. Mariana, Jesus and Jude all went into their own rooms, while Brandon was keeping Callie company in the kitchen.

"I hope they'll be okay," she started trying to make conversation. Brandon had been almost speechless after finding out what his father did, and Callie could tell the entire situation made him feel uncomfortable.

"Yeah, me too… I just can't believe he would do that to them. And now, they were just married. I mean… I knew that he still loved her, but I thought he could handle it by now; it's been over ten years for God's sake… I never thought that he'd do something so stupid. Something that he knew could've split them both apart."

"But it didn't," Callie assured him. "It didn't split them up. They'll get passed this, and like she said, Mike was drunk."

"He's always drunk," Brandon raised his voice, but quickly calmed when he realized he wasn't speaking to his father. "I'm sorry."

"No, it's fine. I get it."

Their conversation was interrupted by the sound of the house phone ringing.

"Who could that be?" Brandon asked, not really expecting Callie to know the answer.

Being that Callie was preoccupied with the stove, Brandon went into the living room to answer it. Just moments later, Callie went to throw something in the trash and realized that it was full.

* * *

It was already dark outside when she opened the back door to take out the garbage. There was a small light that automatically turned on, giving her some luminance, as she walked over to the garbage bin.

A noise coming from the side of the house startled her. "Hello?" she asked, wondering if it would be wise to walk towards the noise or not. But her curiosity got the best of her, and she took a few steps towards the side of the house, "Is any one there?"

At that exact moment a figure of a man in a navy blue hoodie stepped out from around the house. Callie gasped at the sight but relaxed a little when he didn't come any further. "What do you want?" she asked in a voice that sounded both angry and full of fear.

"I came to talk to you," the man replied in a calm tone "…but I can't do it here."

"Why not?" she asked nervously.

"You know exactly why not… I just want a chance to explain. I'll tell you everything you want to know. Just not here."

"Why should I trust you?"

"Because I saved your life…why would I do that, if I were going to hurt you?"

"I don't know. Why would you stalk me and threaten my family?" she replied sarcastically.

"Because I am your family."

Callie gave him a confused look, "What?"

The dark figure slowly stepped forward and removed the hoodie from his head, revealing for the first time his face in the light. She could now see his light skin, brown eyes, and brown hair. He looked so much like Jude that it terrified her. "I'm your brother, your older brother, Chris... And we don't have a lot of time. Someone will come looking for you at any second. Then, I'll never be able to explain."

Callie knew that she could trust him. If he had wanted to hurt her, he would have tried to do so already. He'd already had plenty of opportunities to. She followed him, knowing she had to get to the bottom of this once and for all.

* * *

"Hello?" Brandon asked into the house phone.

"B, it's your dad. Can you put your mom on the phone? It's really important and she's not answering her cell."

"Why can't you leave her alone, dad? She's gay. What don't you understand about that… You know what forget it? Why do I even bother," Brandon said as he hung up the phone and turned towards the kitchen. "Callie, you won't believe who— Callie?" He turned to see the empty garbage can and the backdoor left open. He walked outside, "You know, I would have thrown out the—" he stopped when he saw no sight of the girl. "Callie?" He did a 360, scanning the perimeter and saw no one, leading him to run back inside to search for her. "CALLIE?" he called as he ran up the stairs into Mariana's room. "Have you seen Callie?" he asked her.

"No, I thought she was with you," Mariana answered calmly, as she went back to painting her nails.

He shook his head and ran back downstairs to search the living room, "Callie?"

Stef came running downstairs, "What is that burning?" she asked but Brandon ignored her question.

"Have you seen Callie?"

"What do you mean?" Stef began walking into the kitchen to find out where the burning smell was coming from. "Last time I checked she was in here cooking," she responded as she turned off the stove and moved the burning pot into the sink. She got a glimpse of the backdoor that was left wide-open, "Who left the door open?" she asked while walking towards it, with obvious fear in her voice.

"It was open when I came back, I just went to answer the phone for a second. She was right here," he replied while motioning toward the stove.

Stef stepped outside. "I already checked outside and the rest of the house," Brandon added.

Stef's eyes widened and she turned back around, "DAMNIT!" she yelled as she ran over to the house phone, "LENA!" Moments later, Brandon heard her say, "Hi, my name is Stephanie Foster, I believe my foster daughter has just been kidnapped." Brandon heard a pause as Stef was listening to the person on the other line, "…My guess is by her father…"


	28. Chapter 28

As Callie opened the car door, she thought about going back inside her house and leaving a note. _If I go back inside, Brandon would want to know where I'm going. Knowing him, he'd overreact and would forbid me to go. Or maybe Stef and Lena would catch me leaving. I need to get to the bottom of this, and none of them would get it. I'll just be gone a few minutes,_ she thought. _No one would probably even notice I was gone._

When she got into the car, Chris quickly sped away from the house. Callie gave him a strange look.

"Relax, I'll bring you right back. I promise."

They drove all the way down the block in his silver truck and finally came to a stop. "Okay…" Callie began.

Chris shut off the truck and removed the keys from the ignition, "I know this all sounds crazy and everything, and I admit it kind of is, but we thought it was the only way."

"Only way what?" Callie asked with a perplexed look on her face.

"The only way he could get you guys back, both you and Jude."

"What makes you think we want to go back?" she snapped.

"Well, besides the fact that you ran away?" he smiled, but Callie's serious expression remained unaltered.

"You don't know anything about the reason I ran away."

"You're right. I don't. But I know that our dad wants you both back with him. And I want you back."

"You want me back? I don't even know you, and I certainly don't remember anyone ever mentioning I had another brother."

"That's because I've only seen you a couple of times, when you were too little to talk. Dad stopped taking you to visit me because he was afraid. Afraid that you'd tell your mom about me."

"Why wouldn't he want her to know that he had another son?"

"Because he was afraid she'd leave him…he had an affair with another woman, my mom, while he was with her. He said he loved your mom, and he didn't want to risk losing any of you."

"Yeah? Is that why he killed her? Is that why he risked going to jail and leaving his two, I mean 3 kids behind. Because he loved her? Loved all of us? Is that why he denied your existence? Because he loved you too? You're seriously delusional if you believe that."

"He never denied my existence. He always came to see me, and he never forgot about me. Just like he's never forgot about you or Jude…Callie, he's a changed man. He's getting his life together. Got a job. Got an apartment. He's trying to do right by all of us. You have to see it to believe it."

"He's trying to do right? He threatened my family multiple times. Vandalized our home. Scared the hell out of all of us? Because he's a changed man? You're right about one thing. He is a changed man. He's not only an alcoholic anymore. He's a freaking psychopath."

"NO HE'S NOT!" Chris yelled causing Callie to jump slightly from her seat. He noticed this and softened his tone, "Those were all my ideas."

Callie gave him that confused look again, "Huh?"

"They were all my ideas because… because, he saw how bad his chances were of getting you two back. He was worried that the courts wouldn't approve him for custody, if they thought you were better off with your new foster family. I suggested we try to scare your new foster family into sending you two back, back to foster care. I vandalized the car, I sent the notes. And when that didn't work, I tried to split those two women up."

"What do you mean?" she asked with obvious rage showing in her eyes.

"I sent the curly-haired one a picture of the blonde kissing the other dude."

"You saw them kiss?"

"No, I saw the one dude kiss her, and she quickly pulled away after and got angry about it. But I got it on camera, and it was too good of an opportunity not to take. I had to send the picture."

"How could you do all of those things? Almost split an innocent family apart, why? So our pitiful excuse of a father could be proud of you?"

"No, I did all of this, so that I can finally try to pull this family, our family, back together. You have to understand I was only doing what I thought was right. If getting us all back together once and for all is wrong, then I don't want to be right. You know that you don't belong there, Callie. That's why you left and deep down you know it."

"You're crazy," Callie replied, while shaking her head and protest.

"Just do me a favor? Promise me you won't make a decision about all of this right now. Promise me you'll take the time to think about it? And promise me you won't say anything about any of this to anyone."

There was a long silence. And finally Callie face softened as she suddenly felt as if Jude were right in front of her. She knew Chris wasn't Jude, but they looked too much alike to completely separate the two now, "Look… I will, if you promise me something."

"Anything."

"You'll stop threatening the Fosters. You'll stop vandalizing their property and stop sending them creepy messages. And you stop coming up with crazy ideas from watching too many movies. This has to stop."

"Deal," he smiled as he pulled her into a hug.

"All right, a little too soon for me," she said, as she ended up awkwardly accepting the hug.

Moments later, they were pulled apart by the sound of police sirens. Just as they thought they were completely screwed, the red and blue flashing lights sped right passed them.

Callie's eyes widened, "Oh no, they're going to my house."

"I can't drop you—"

"I know. I have to go," Callie responded as got out of the car and ran back to the Foster's house.

* * *

By the time Callie got there, two police cars were parked in the front. She threw open the door and Stef and Lena turned around, from giving their police report. Both of their faces displayed signs of shock, as they layed eyes on Callie.

"What's going on?" Callie asked innocently.

"What's going on?" Lena repeated sarcastically.

"Where the hell have you been? And you better have a damn good reason" Stef threatened.

Callie was taken aback by their harsh tones. "I just went out," she replied with sudden regret.

"You just went out?" Lena repeated her again.

"Yes. What's the big deal?" Callie asked.

One of the police officers budded in, "So, this is Callie?" he asked both Stef and Lena, while pointing in Callie's direction.

"Yes officers, we're so sorry to inconvenience you," Lena offered. Stef didn't take her glaring eyes off of Callie.

"No, it's fine. We're glad she's all right. Just next time, make sure she has been missing at least 48 hours before contacting us… We're just going to show ourselves out ladies, goodnight."

Lena and Stef waved at the officers, without really paying them any attention.

As soon as they closed the door, Stef went off, "What on earth were you thinking? Do you have any idea what you put us through?"

"I've only been gone a few minutes," Callie answered, silently wondering what was the big deal.

"I'm not only talking about the past 20 minutes Callie. I'm talking about the past few weeks," Stef's voice cracked a little towards the end, and Lena tried to rub her arm in comfort.

"Stef, she's ok."

"But we're not. She can't keep doing this to us and getting away with it? We can't keep allowing this to happen." Stef voice reverted back to angry.

"Stef, I'll handle it, just go upstairs please."

"No! I will not go upstairs, Lena! Don't talk to me like I'm one of the kids!"

Lena turned Stef's body away from Callie and hid her own in back of Stef, so that Callie couldn't read their words while they whispered away.

Callie awkwardly stood there in their living room, waiting for their private conversation to finish. When it became apparent that it did, Stef looked away from Lena and walked to their bedroom, without even glancing once at Callie.

Callie hadn't decided whether that was a good thing or a bad one.

"Callie, I'd like to talk to you in the kitchen, please."

…

* * *

**Oh Damn… **

**Will Callie tell the TRUTH?**

**What will be the consequences of admitting it?**

…**But then again, let's not forget that LIES ARE ALWAYS PRETTIER :)**


	29. Chapter 29

Callie already felt the long lecture she was about to receive form Lena, before they even entered the kitchen. She already knew she wasn't going to be able to get out of this one. She couldn't help but wonder,_ Will this be the last straw for them? Will they finally realize that they've wasted their time on me?_

"Have a seat," Lena began as she gestured toward an empty chair and sat on the one directly in front of it.

Callie knew she was testing her, but decided to sit on a different chair, the one farthest from Lena.

"Okay…" This didn't go unnoticed, because Lena got up and sat in the chair directly across from Callie.

"Do we really have to do this?" Callie asked. "I already know, I messed up. I should have told you two something before leaving. I didn't mean to upset Stef."

Lena tried her best to remain calm and not let her emotions get the best of her, "Yes, you should have, but that's not the reason why Stef was so upset… Well, it's part of the reason, but not all. Callie, we thought you had been kidnapped or ran away again."

"What? I promised you that I wouldn't run away again, and I don't break my promises? And what are you talking about kidnapped?"

"I know you promised us, but you just disappeared again without saying anything. You know the rules, Callie. You know that you're supposed to ask either me or Stef, before you leave the house. You can't just get up and leave, whenever you want. I know that neither Stef nor I have discussed your punishment for running away with you, and that's not your fault, but we were trying to give you some time. And someone is stalking all of us, and threatening to take you away. You didn't think that we were going to be a little worried that you were gone, out of the blue?"

Callie wasn't sure how to answer that one, "I didn't think I would take long. I guess I didn't think things through very well."

Lena was unable to mask her anger and raised her voice a little, "Callie, that is not an excuse. Stef was upset with you because she was scared. Scared that something bad happened to you, scared that you ran away again. And frankly, so am I. There is no excuse for this type of behavior. Where were you anyways?" Lena asked while tilting her head to the side.

"Uh…" Callie stuttered, while looking down at the table.

_Should I tell her the truth? _

_She might appreciate it more, but I promised Chris I wouldn't. _

_And of course she'd tell Stef, who's already angry with me. _

_They might try to throw Chris and my dad in jail… They honestly weren't trying to hurt anyone. They were just doing what they thought was right. _

_But she knew Stef and Lena wouldn't see it the same way…_

"Callie?"

"Uh… I needed to get some air. I wanted some time to myself for a while, and in case you haven't noticed it's hard to get that around here."

"Are you sure that's why you left?" Lena asked again, waiting for the truth this time. She wasn't buying the "I needed some air excuse."

At this exact moment, Mariana barged in unannounced from the door behind Callie. "Mama, this is my fault. Callie told me that she was leaving and asked me to tell you, but I just forgot. I should have told you right away, but then you and Mom were fighting, so I decided to wait," Mariana explained. "I'm sorry. It won't happen again."

Callie mouthed the words, "Thank you," and turned back around to face Lena.

Lena seemed surprised by the sudden revelation. "Callie, why didn't you tell us this?"

"I… didn't think you would believe me," Callie responded.

Lena nodded, "All right, well thank you for letting us know Mariana, but next time let us know a little earlier. We could have stopped her from leaving. And Callie, Mom and I haven't discussed your punishment, but you are not to leave this house any time soon, for whatever reason. Am I clear?"

"Yup," Callie nodded.

"Okay, you girls head up to bed. I'll talk with your mom."

* * *

As soon as Callie and Mariana closed their bedroom door, they each went to their own beds. Callie spoke first, "Why did you do that?"

"Well, after that whole pill fiasco, I figured I owed you. And… we're sisters, right? We're supposed to cover for each other." Mariana smiled.

Callie couldn't help but smile back, "Well, thank you." She tried to shut off the nightlight when Mariana spoke up again.

"Uh, helloooo… I said we're sisters. So that means you have to tell me where you were."

"Uh, you wouldn't understand."

"Try me?"

Callie thought for a second, "Okay, but only if you promise not to tell anyone."

Mariana clapped and smileD, "Oooo, this is going to be good. I can tell."

"Mariana."

She held up her left hand in the air, "I promise."

Callie laughed.

"What's so funny?"

"It's the other hand you're supposed to hold up."

"Ah, who cares? So spill…"

Callie told Mariana everything about Chris and about her Dad.

Mariana started laughing uncontrollably.

"What now?" Callie asked confused as she threw her pillow at Mariana.

"And you didn't think I would understand?" Mariana kept laughing, "You're talking to the girl who tried to hide her meetings with her biological mother from her moms. It's the same thing."

"It's not the same thing," Callie said.

"It totally is…" Her smile suddenly faded, "But don't make the same mistake I made. You should tell moms. Me keeping that secret, almost got one of them killed. I think they'll understand."

Callie nodded her head, "I will, but I want to figure out what I'm going to do about it first. I'm not sure if I even want to meet my dad yet. I don't want to tell them, if there's nothing to worry about… And besides, they aren't going to write any more scary notes or anything else. They promised."

"Okay," Mariana accepted. "But don't take that long. You never know what can happen. I sure didn't."

* * *

"So, apparently Mariana forgot to tell us that Callie was leaving. She said she told her to tell us, before she went out, but we were fighting so she didn't think it was a good time." Lena layed down on the bed next to her wife and pulled the covers on top of her.

"What?"

"Well, that's what we're supposed to believe. Even though I'm sure she was just covering for her," Lena smiled.

"That's not funny," Stef responded.

"I know, but it's sweet that she covered for her. Like they were actually sisters. I couldn't help but let this one slide."

Stef smiled a little too, "Well, don't make a habit of it. No matter how cute they sound… So, what was her reason for leaving?"

"She needed some time for herself," Lena answered.

"Uhuh," Stef rolled her eyes. "Well, I hope you told her that she's no longer allowed to leave the house. Like ever… We still have to find her dad and—"

"I know," Lena agreed. They turned to look at their bedroom door, when they heard the girl's laughing.

"They're laughing at us, babe," Stef said annoyed.

"They are not," Lena finished, as she shut off their nightlight and cuddled with her wife.

* * *

**K, so I know some of you wanted Callie to tell the truth, but I wanted to throw in the other characters again.**

**And I wanted to do a Callie/Mariana bonding moment.**

**And there's a method to my madness :)**

**These lies always end up biting the characters in the ass somehow, so relaxxx.**


	30. Chapter 30

**Damnnn… 30 Chapters, This is OD. I wanted to make this story like 12 chapters, but I don't know what happened. This was my first story and I had too many ideas popping up in my head at once…**

**But we're almost coming to an end….**

**I said almost.**

* * *

Everyone was sitting in the kitchen, surrounded by the morning chaos of an average breakfast at the Foster's home.

Steph was making pancakes with the help of her wife, when her cell phone began to ring. She looked down and saw the name on the caller ID: **MIKE**. She glanced up to look at Lena's reaction, but was surprised when Lena just nodded her head with acceptance.

"Just answer it. I'm over all of that. Besides, it might be about —" Lena stopped when she realized she shouldn't mention Callie and Jude's father, in front of everyone.

"I'll be right back, babe."

"I'll be here," Lena smiled.

Steph left the kitchen and went onto the back porch to get some privacy.

"What is it Mike?" she asked with a half-annoyed, half-anxious voice.

"We checked up on his house, Donald's."

"Tell me you have good news. I could really use some good news right now."

"Yes and no, Stef."

"Mike," Stef sounded every letter in his name because she was losing her patience with him, "the last time you said that, you gave me bad news. Just bad news. Let's not drag this out again."

"Alright Stef. Well, the bad news is that he wasn't at the residence that's listed on his driver's license. So, we went to check out another place, the address that the new resident's were forwarding his mail to. And…"

"And what!"

"He wasn't there either. But the landlord told us that he does in fact live there and is on vacation visiting his son."

"His son?" Stef asked curiously. "He has another son, besides Jude?"

"It appears so. But, I haven't gotten to the good news yet."

"Go on."

"The landlord gave us permission to search his property and we've found a bunch of photos. Of both kids, Callie and Jude. And we've found some sealed letters for them, letters that he wrote from prison that he never sent out... So, depending on how you feel about that, that could be good or bad news."

Stef was silent. She wasn't sure how she should feel about it. She knew this was a conversation that she would have to have with her wife.

"Is that it Mike?"

"Uh… yeah. And oh, there was no alcohol in the apartment, so we're almost sure he stopped drinking. And it looks really decent. The landlord said that he seems like a pretty stand-up guy. Always pays his rent on time and never causes any trouble for him or his neighbors."

"Uhuh," Stef was agitated for some reason and didn't want to believe a word that the landlord said.

"So, do you want me to drop this off?"

"Drop what off?" Stef asked as if she was completely disinterested in the conversation.

"The pictures and the letters, you know, for the kids?"

"Sure, drop them off. But don't let anyone else see you with them. I want to discuss it with Lena first."

"Stef, this is their dad," Mike responded as if there should be no reason for Stef to sound so distant and reluctant to accept Callie and Jude's father had changed.

"Don't you think I know that, Mike. But their dad damaged my property more than once, stalked us all the way to Arizona and back, not to mention, has scared and threatened my entire family. We really don't know anything about this guy, other than what he's done. All of which isn't good… And we know even less about his son. Do you even have a name for him yet?"

"No, we're working on that. We've tried to contact his birth mom, but haven't had any luck yet. We'll get back to you as soon as that's done."

"Well, let me know when you have some good news, Mike. And please run thorough background checks on this supposed "brother" you've mentioned. Because I've never heard of Callie or Jude mentioning another sibling."

"Have you ever asked them about it?" Mike asked.

"Mike, I gotta go," Stef responded as an attempt to cut the conversation short.

* * *

After everyone was done eating breakfast, the Stef and Lena asked them all, except for Callie to go to their rooms.

Callie knew that this was about her punishment or maybe Mariana might have said something about her meeting with her brother. She wasn't sure which to prepare for, as she watched the others descend into their own rooms.

"Callie," Lena began, "we wanted to discuss your punishment with you. We've put this discussion off just so you could have some time to think, but after last night, we've realized that wasn't the greatest decision."

Callie knew that she disappointed them and she couldn't help but feel that that they thought she was taking advantage of them and of their silence. She knew she wasn't and she had a good reason for leaving, but she couldn't give them that reason.

At least not yet.

Especially not now when she was being given her punishment. Whatever it was, she was going to accept it without complaint.

Stef budded in, "Mama and I have agreed that you are not to leave this house, unless one of us is with you, aside from going to school. Callie, we still don't know who this person threatening us is, but we do know, that they are obviously willing to go to such extreme measures to get to you. That being said, you aren't to step foot outside for whatever reason. Not even to take out the trash. Understood?" Stef lowered her head and and eyed Callie as she waited for a response. She hated playing the bad cop, but she didn't want to get walked all over on either.

"Yes," Callie agreed.

"And no phone," Stef added as she held her hand open for Callie to hand over her iPhone. Callie handed it over without a problem.

Lena felt the need to cut in, "We know that this may seem a little harsh and maybe different from what you're used to…"

_Very different,_ Callie wanted to say, but fought to keep her mouth shut.

Lena read Callie's facial expression, which gave her thoughts away and continued, "…but we are doing this, because this is what we would do with any of our children. This would be no different, if it we were talking to Brandon, or Mariana, or even Jesus. So, please don't take this as hate or unfairness, because this is far from it. We need to be able to trust you, so that means that you have to start being honest with us. When that happens, however long that takes, we will ease up on the punishment. Sound fair?"

_NO!_ Callie wanted to scream. _If I were honest with you, you would send both my older brother and father to jail, without thinking twice about it. Or you would realize that Jude and I came with two much baggage and send us back. To foster care? To live with our "dad"? Who knows?_ But she just nodded her head yes to Lena's question instead.

* * *

**And for those of you reading my other story, **_**Someone Else**_**, I will be updating that one sometime tomorrow. **

**Writing two stories at once… yeah, not the brightest idea in the world, but I'm managing.**

**And I'm already thinking of my next story SMH -_-**

**But I want to definitely finish this one up soon. Not sure how many chapters left, but definitely less than 10.**

**Next chapter: Stef and Lena discuss the situation with Callie and Jude's father and Callie makes a not so smart decision that will lead to some unwanted revelations…**

**As always thanks for reading etc.**


	31. Chapter 31

Later that night, Lena came into her bedroom and saw Stef sitting cross-legged on their bed, rummaging though a cardboard box. The box seemed to be filled with papers, which caused Lena to give her a confused and curious look. "What are you looking for?" Lena asked.

"Are all of the kids asleep?" Stef asked lowering her glasses from her face, to look at Lena.

"I just checked on them. They're all in their beds," Lena answered, even more curiously than she was before. "What's going on?" Lena walked over and sat beside Stef on the bed, while peering at the photos she had in her hand. A smile crept on Lena's face, as she began to realize who was in the photo. "Is that—"

Stef nodded and couldn't help but smile too.

It was a photo of little Callie dressed as Mini-mouse and smaller Jude dressed as Mickey. They both had black dots on their noses, and Callie was wearing a little red dress with polka dots and white dress shoes, while Jude was wearing a long-sleeve black shirt with red shorts up to his belly. They both were holding pumpkin baskets for Halloween, and Callie was hugging her brother protectively, but with a serious face, as she always seemed to be.

Stef handed the photo over to Lena and began rummaging through the others.

"They look so adorable. Where did you get this from?" Lena asked.

Stef sat silently, looking over the other photos of the two kids and their parents.

"Stef?" Lena tried to get her attention, so that she knew that the question wasn't going to go away.

"Mike dropped them off?"

"Mike?" Lena asked confused.

"Yeah. He searched Donald's apartment."

"Legally?"

"Yes, legally," Stef replied annoyed. _Did she really think that she and Mike broke the law on a daily basis?_

"Was he there?"

"Nope. Unfortunately."

"And he kept all of these pictures of them?"

"I suppose so. And some letters."

"What letters?"

Stef handed Lena a huge pile of letters addressed to Callie and Jude. Lena was shocked when she saw them. From the looks of it, they were all written while he was in prison, because of the return address.

"He wrote all of these and never sent them out?"

"Apparently not… I've been fighting the urge to open them."

"Well, keep fighting it because you can't. They weren't meant for us," Lena responded with hesitance. Deep down she wanted to read them too, but knew that it wasn't the right thing to do.

"I know that Lena, but we're responsible for those kids, and we should know what we're dealing with here. We can't just hand them over to them, not knowing what is written in it."

"I know. I know. We shouldn't give the letters to them, not yet anyway. And if we read them, without their permission, I don't even want to know what would happen. I mean, if they even found out about all of this..."

"They won't. But I'm just worried," Stef replied as she put everything back in the box and moved it across the room, by the door.

"About what?"

"I think he's trying to get them back, Lena." Stef layed back on the bed and pulled the covers over her and her wife. "There's witnesses that are saying that he's stopped drinking and cleaned himself up. He got his own apartment with plenty of space. And—"

"And what?"

"And he has another son," Stef layed back and shut off her night-light.

Lena turned hers on, "WHAT?"

"Apparently, he has another son, who he's visiting now by the way."

"How old is he?"

"Not sure. Mike still hasn't gotten back to me. I'm just worried that—"

"What? That he'll get custody of Callie and Jude? There's not a chance in hell."

Stef was taken aback by Lena's choice in words. "So, what do you suppose we do? Push the adoption forward," Stef responded, as if that was their only option.

"I'm not so sure how Callie would feel about that? She ran away, the last time, remember?"

"How could I forget?" Stef gave Lena a stern look. She was still angry about that, and wasn't sure if that anger would ever go away. "But I think she's ready now. Did you see how she accepted our punishment without saying a word? You know we would've gotten a mouthful from Mariana," Stef smiled, as she thought about how Mariana would've reacted.

Lena smiled too, "We would've still been sitting at the table, watching her try to negotiate her way out of it," she laughed.

"That would be right. But we don't have to tell them about it. We can start the process, and fill them in later? That would give them time to get used to things here, right?"

"We better hope so," Lena responded, as she turned off her nightlight and kissed her wife goodnight.

* * *

The next morning, Lena dropped off all of the kids at the school. She walked to her office while the others went in their separate directions.

Jude pulled Callie to the side, "I need to talk to you."

Mariana stared at them both with curiosity. "Mariana, I'll catch up to you later," Callie said, when she got a glimpse of Mariana's face. Mariana just smiled and walked away, even though she knew something was definitely up.

"What's up buddy?"

Jude looked around to make sure that no one was looking, and opened his book bag and pulled out 4 envelopes and handed them to Callie, "Here."

Callie gave him a confused look and looked down at the envelopes. They were all letters addressed to both of them, from their dad, "Jude, where did you get this?"

"Stef and Lena's room. There were a lot more, but I didn't want them to notice they were gone. They weren't even going to give them to us! I heard them talking last night! Dad wants us back and they were keeping this from us!" Jude yelled.

Callie looked at Jude in surprise and looked down at the letters, "They're open. Did they read them?"

"No. I did," Jude looked down with shame. "I needed to know what they said for myself. They weren't going to read them, so I had to. Callie, what do we do?" Jude raised his voice in anger.

"You're going to calm down," Callie shot him a stern look. "We're going to figure this out, together okay. We'll talk more about it later. I promise. Don't tell anyone about this."

Jude nodded and began walking to his class.

Callie was trying to keep it together for her brother. If she got angry in front of him, she knew that he wouldn't be able to contain himself. But she couldn't believe that Stef and Lena would keep something like this from her. Especially after they had just given her a lecture about honesty and trust. She had felt so guilty for not telling them about Chris and her dad, but realized that they thought that being honest and trust, was only a one-way street.

* * *

She ran over to the girl's bathroom and checked to make sure no one was in it. She walked into an empty stall and began opening the first letter on top of the pile, her hands trembling in the process.

_Dear Callie and Jude,_

_I've written over forty letters to both of you, whilst in this prison, but haven't managed to send one of them out. Even now, while I'm writing this, I'm not too sure if it'll be the one I finally send out either. I wanted you both to know how sorry I am for all that's happened, all the pain you both had to endure because of my weakness, and most of all, all the years you've had to go on without your mother and me. _

_I know that this apology doesn't make anything better, and it certainly doesn't bring your mother back to life. I won't go on asking for your forgiveness, because I know I'll never be able to forgive myself. Every day that I am in here, surrounded by these four cement walls, is another day that I think of that irreversible choice I made, the choice to drive drunk. I know now, that I don't deserve to have you two in my life, but that doesn't change the fact that I think of you two at least a dozen times a day._

_I'll always love you two and will do everything in my power to make things right by you. I would love to someday be a part of your lives, but won't demand it. I wouldn't want to cause either of you any more pain, than I have already caused. _

_Your mom helped me make a promise to myself, that I would never have another drink as long as I live. She came to me in a dream, shortly after she passed, and helped me with my problem. She made me realize that my decision to drink and drive has ruined everything that I had. And I had EVERYTHING. It wasn't worth it, and I know that now. In the end, it'll be up to you, and even if you both chose that you want nothing to do with me, I'll accept that. But know that I'll always love both of you and that will never change, regardless of your decision. _

_ With all my love,_

_ Dad_

Callie folded the letter back and placed it back inside of the envelope. She sobbed a little too loudly and stopped, when she heard the bathroom door open. She quickly shoved the letters back into her backpack, and tried to wipe away the tears that had fallen onto her cheeks with her sleeve.

"Callie," a voice said…

* * *

**The idea for the letter just came to me. I doubt I'm going to write all four of them, because that could get pretty boring. But all of them are pretty much different versions of the same thing.**

**Next chapter: Who's in the bathroom with her? And how do Callie's secrets come out… **


	32. Chapter 32

_Previously: Callie folded the letter back and placed it back inside of the envelope. She sobbed a little too loudly and stopped, when she heard the bathroom door open. She quickly shoved the letters back into her backpack, and tried to wipe away the tears that had fallen onto her cheeks with her sleeve. _

"_Callie," a voice said…_

Callie grabbed some toilet paper to blow her nose and walked out of the bathroom. "Hey, Mariana," she fake-smiled. "This cold is killing me," she fibbed.

"Really, you didn't look sick 5 minutes ago," Mariana responded, completely unconvinced of Callie's lie. She placed her hand on Callie's arm. "Why were you crying?"

Callie moved away from the bathroom stall and walked over to the sink. "What are you talking about? I wasn't crying."

"Then, why are your eyes all watery?"

"Because I just blew my nose," Callie responded, as if that were a reasonable explanation.

"I heard you."

"Heard me what? Blow my nose?"

"Callie."

"Mariana."

"Fine. If you won't tell me, I guess I'll just have to go ask mom. While I'm at it, I'll tell her the truth about last night…" Mariana began to walk toward the bathroom door. She had no intention of going to Lena, and she hoped that Callie would try to stop her beforehand. She knew very well that telling her mother the truth would get her in trouble as well, but she didn't like Callie keeping secrets from her now.

"You wouldn't?" Callie asked nervously.

"Wouldn't I?" Mariana tried to remain strong, hoping Callie couldn't see right through her.

"You don't have to know everything, you know?"

"About my own sister? I think so."

"I'm starting to think twice about this sister thing," Callie joked.

"Ha-ha," Mariana fake-laughed. "So, what is it? Spill?"

At that exact moment, the first bell rang. "Better get to class," Callie began walking to the door.

"Nuh-uh, ya don't." Mariana blocked the exit.

Callie took in a deep breath and breathed it out, "…my dad is trying to get me back."

"I know. We went over this last night…"

"Well, your moms have been hiding his letters to me and Jude."

"Our moms," Mariana corrected, "…and what letters?"

Callie pulled out the letters from her backpack and handed them to Mariana, "These letters."

"Where did you get these?" Mariana held the letters in her hand and stared at Callie in shock. She couldn't believe that her mothers would do something like this. It was so unlike them.

"Jude got them from your moms room. He didn't mean to snoop. He was just curious because he heard your moms talking about them last night."

"Our moms," Mariana corrected again. "What do they say?"

"I only read one," Callie responded as she reached for the envelopes to shove them back into her bag.

"I'm sure they were going to show you guys them," Mariana offered.

"No, they weren't… Jude heard them talking last night. They weren't even going to tell us."

"I'm sorry."

"It's not your fault."

"I know, but still…"

Mariana hugged Callie, which felt a little awkward to Callie at first, but she hugged her back nonetheless.

At that exact moment, Lena walked in the bathroom and saw the two. "Uh…shouldn't you girls be in class?"

"We were just going," Mariana offered a smile. Callie didn't even bother looking up at her as she walked passed both of them and exited the bathroom.

Lena looked at Callie curiously and turned back to Mariana, "What's up with Callie?"

"I don't know," Mariana shrugged. "Have to get to class," she sped right passed Lena before she could be stopped.

Lena made a mental note to ask Callie about it later.

* * *

Both girls were sitting outside during their lunch period, when Callie saw Chris's silver tundra truck from afar. Callie stood up abruptly, and Mariana looked gave her a strange look. "I'll see you later, Mariana."

Mariana turned around to see what Callie was looking at and saw the truck too, "Wait, who's that?"

"Chris," Callie responded as she packed up her lunch tray to throw it out.

"Wait. You're going to see him, right now. What… What if Mom sees you? Or worse, she doesn't see you, and asks me where you went?"

"Then, you'll cover for me right?"

Mariana let out a loud sigh, "I don't like this, Callie."

"Then, don't cover for me. It's fine."

"That's not what I meant," Mariana shook her head slightly.

"This is something I have to do, okay?"

Mariana accepted the answer, but wasn't thrilled about it.

* * *

Callie ran over to the car and got in it. "Hey," she smiled.

Chris was surprised, that she had seemed much happier than she had the night before, "Hey, you seem different?" he asked skeptically.

"How?"

"Less..."

"…freaked out by you," Callie finished for him. "Well, I found the letters. Well…Jude found the letters. Some of the letters, anyway."

"What letters?" Chris asked curiously.

"The letters that Dad wrote us, while he was in prison."

"He wrote you? He never wrote me?" Chris asked in a low voice. It was obvious, that he was hurt by the news.

"He probably did." Chris stared at Callie confusingly and she gave him a warm smile, "He never sent the letters out. My mom… I mean, my foster mom is a cop and her ex-husband, who is also a cop, kind searched our Dad's place and…"

"…found the letters," Chris finished. Callie nodded. "And they just gave them to you? To read? That was cool of them."

"…Not exactly. Jude found them."

"Oh my God! Did you tell Jude about us?"

"No. Not yet, but—"

"You can't tell him. Dad thinks he's two young to keep a secret like this and I think so too."

"You guys don't know him like I do. If anyone can keep a secret, it's Jude."

"So, what does this mean? Do you guys wanna see Dad?" Chris began to turn on the car and put it in reverse.

"Whoah, slow down, Chris. I can't leave school in the middle of the day," she couldn't help but laugh at how anxious he was.

"Why not? Don't tell me you're one of those good girls that's never ditched a class in her life?" Chris laughed.

"Uh, no. My mo—, foster mom is the vice principal and she'd definitely notice I was gone."

"Damn… that's gotta suck. So, later then? Say 7 o'clock?"

"Okay. Oh, wait. I'm grounded. I just remembered."

"Until when?"

"Forever."

"Damn… what'd you do?"

"Ran away. You remember that right?And you didn't help anything, but threatening to take me away. They won't let me out of the house, because they think I'm in danger or something."

Chris began laughing uncontrollably.

"I'm glad you're finding this so amusing," she said sarcastically.

"I'm sorry. It's not. It's not," he smirked.

"I can tell you think so," she smiled. "Jerk."

"Will you be here tomorrow? At this time?"

"Yup. Only place I'm allowed to be."

"We'll both be here. You're gonna make Dad so happy. You don't even understand," he replied and pulled Callie into a hug.

"Oh, another awkward hug. That makes two today," Callie laughed.

At that exact moment, someone pulled open the driver's side door and pulled Chris out of the truck…

* * *

**Dun, dun, dun… **

**You see? This is why I didn't have Callie confess earlier in the story about her brother. Because I had this scene and the next one in my head.**

**I'll probably upload the next one tomorrow or Saturday. Already have some of it written, so yeah… Pay attention for that :)**


	33. Chapter 33

"STEF!" Callie yelled once she saw the blonde in her cop uniform. She got out of the truck and ran over to the other side immediately.

"DON'T RESIST!" Stef yelled as she pulled Chris's arms behind him and tried to cuff him. It was obvious that they were both struggling.

"Ahhhh!" he yelled in pain.

"You son of a bitch!" She yelled.

"MOM! STOP, PLEASE!"

Stef ignored Callie and kept her attention on the man in front of her, "STOP RESISTING!"

"CHRIS, PLEASE JUST LISTEN TO HER!"

Chris stopped trying to get away from her and did as Callie asked. Stef cuffed his hands behind his back and threw him onto the floor, falling on top of him.

"MOM!"

Stef stood up but kept her foot dug into his back, so that he couldn't get up, "WHO THE HELL IS THIS, CALLIE?" she asked.

Callie was speechless all of a sudden and just stared at Stef, with apparent fear in her eyes.

"Callie? Who is this?" It was obvious that Stef was angry. She was as angry, as the night that Callie arrived back home, when she thought she had bee kidnapped.

Callie still couldn't find the courage to speak.

Stef realized she wasn't going to get anything out of Callie and turned her attention to Chris, "Who the hell are you?"

"No one. DON'T SAY ANYTHING CALLIE!"

Stef knelt down next to him, to lift him up from the ground. "I'm sure we can handle this at the precinct," she said, as she pulled him up and began walking him over to her car.

"NO!" Callie yelled. Stef turned around to face her, waiting for a reply. "I CAN'T TELL YOU."

Stef looked at Callie in disbelief, "Yeah? Why not?"

"DON'T!" Chris yelled, while looking at Callie.

"DID HE THREATEN YOU NOT TO?"

"NO, that's not it."

"How old are you, Chris?" Stef asks, as she looks upward at him.

"21, mam," he responds.

"Yup, that's all I need to hear," she says as she continues to walk to her car with him.

Once she opens the backseat door and throws him in, she continues, "You do know that it's illegal for you to date a minor, correct?"

"DATE? What are you talking about?"

"Don't play dumb with me. She's a child for god's sake."

"Whoah, Lady! I wouldn't do that."

Stef slammed the door in his face, not allowing him to finish.

"MOM, PLEASE! You've got it all wrong," Callie says.

"Callie, come on. I'm not stupid. I saw you two in his car—."

"What? Ew, no. He's…" Stef stares at her intently. "He's my brother."

Stef gaze stayed on Callie for a few seconds and then turned back to Chris. She shook her head in disbelief, but started to see some similarities between the two. She looked back at Callie, "Go inside and tell Mama to sign you out and meet us at the house. Like right now!"

At first, Callie has hesitant to leave her brother with Stef, but she did as she was told anyway.

* * *

When Lena and Callie both arrived at the house, they saw Chris sitting upright on the couch in the living room, with Stef glaring at him from across the room. Callie hadn't mentioned anything about why Stef told them to leave school, because she didn't want to have to repeat her story more than once. She only said that it was an emergency, which left Lena feeling extremely anxious and nervous.

"Uh… why is there a strange man handcuffed and sitting on my couch?" Lena asked Stef, while giving her a questioning stare.

"I don't know. Maybe that's a question you should be asking Callie? Because, you know, we didn't just have a conversation about the importance of being honest with us last night?" she says sarcastically and looks at her daughter. "We didn't just tell her that the only way we were going to start trusting her, was if she didn't keep secrets from us?"

"Look who's talking!" Callie spat back at Stef. Lena turned her gaze at Callie, knowing this was taking a turn for the worst.

"What is that supposed to mean, young lady?" Stef asks.

"It means you're such a hypocrite! You give me all this crap about being honest so that you can trust me, but it's okay for you two, to lie to my face? To keep things from me? And from Jude?"

Lena's jaw dropped open and so did Stef's.

"Callie!" Lena yells to try to calm her daughter down. She wasn't entirely sure what her daughter was referring to, but she knew Callie was getting riled up and so was Stef. She knew that this wasn't a good mixture.

"What are you talking about?" Stef asks.

Callie opens her backpack and takes out the letters. "I'm talking about this!" she yells as she throws the letters onto the table in front of them. "You two can hide letters that my father wrote from me, but I have to tell you every detail of my life! That's a fucking joke!" she says as she begins walking toward the stairs.

Stef runs over and grabs her arm before she gets up the third step, "Where did you get those from?"

"Jude found them in your room, after he heard you two talking last night. Thank God he did, because with your version of honesty, we would've never known," she says as she tugs on her arm, in an effort to get away from Stef, but Stef has more strength than her.

"You're not going anywhere! We're going to talk about this!"

"Oh, nowww you want to talk about this. Last night, it was okay to completely exclude Jude and I from the conversation about our own father, but nowwww you want to talk about it."

"Callie," Stef lowers her voice, in an effort to calm herself.

Lena hears the struggle in her wife's voice and walks over to them. She pries Callie's arm out of Stef's grip and ushers her toward the living room, "Okay, everyone needs to calm down. So, why don't you have a seat here, Callie," she says as she pushes her down softly on the couch next to Chris. She sits on the one directly across from them and pats the seat next to her, so that Stef could sit.

Stef reluctantly sits on the seat next to her wife.

"All right," Lena continues. "Can we please have a productive conversation, instead of continuing what just happened?" She says as shoots stern looks at both Callie and her wife. Both nod in agreement, even though it was obvious that they were both still pumping with adrenaline.

Chris buds in, "Can someone please get these cuffs off of my wrist? They're interfering with by blood circulation."

Callie gives him a sympathetic look, but Stef glares at him. She stands up and walks over and un-cuffs him, only because she knew her wife was going to force her to do so, eventually.

"Thanks," he says. Stef walks back over to her seat without saying a word.

"So, can someone please tell me who this is?" Lena asked.

"This is my brother, Chris?" Callie says.

"Your brother?" Lena asked confusingly, as she tries to wrap her head around what she just learned. "How come you've never mentioned him?"

"Because I didn't know about him until recently," Callie admits.

"How recently?" Stef asks.

"3 days."

Stef looks at Callie in disbelief, and Lena asks the next question, "And how did this come about?"

Callie and Chris exchange looks. "Why does that matter?" Callie asks in an attempt to avoid the question.

"Because maybe it'll help us understand the situation a little bit more."

"It wont," Chris says. All three women glance in his direction, but only Callie knows what his words mean.

"And why is that?" Stef asks him.

Chris looks at Callie, "Can I trust them?"

"Apparently not," she responds.

Both women look at the girl with obvious hurt in their eyes from her statement. They hadn't realized how badly their choice would backfire on them, if Callie or Jude would discover the truth. They now realized that they just took a huge step backwards in their mission to gain their trust.

* * *

Stef speaks first, "Callie, we kept the letters from you because we thought we were doing what was best. We found out that your father has been behind all of crazy things that have been happening, and we didn't want to you to have to deal with it, until we were sure that he was safe."

"Even if that meant that Jude and I went on for the rest of our lives, thinking that our dad never cared about us, that he never once thought about us while he was in prison? Because that's what we thought for over 10 years, and you two knew about the letters. You knew that there was a chance that he wanted us back and said nothing. And how were you going to make sure that he was safe? By throwing him back in jail, so that we would go with our lives, completely clueless?"

Stef and Lena tried to understand Callie and Jude's point of view, but they were forgetting the most important detail. Lena added, "Callie, we care about you and Jude very much. We are so sorry we made you feel that way, but we didn't want to see either of you get hurt any more than you already have been. We kept it from you to protect you both, and I can't say we would do it any differently, if we had the chance."

"Mama's right," Stef continued. "Our job is to protect you both, and your father seems like a very dangerous man."

"He's not dangerous!" Chris yelled, and they were all thrown aback by his sudden outburst.

Stef glanced at him, "What do you call someone who sends my family threatening messages, vandalized my property more than once, and tries to destroy my relationship?"

"Chris Jacobs," he says.

"Excuse me?" Lena and Stef say at the same time.

"Uh…that was all my idea. I'm sorry about that," he says innocently.

"You did all of those things?" Stef stands up from the couch. "And you're admitting to that in front of me?"

"Yes."

"WHY?" Stef yells and her tone scares him so much that he jumps in his seat. She begins walking over to him.

Callie jumps in the conversation and blocks Chris's body with her arm, in an effort to protect her older brother, "Because Chris thought it was the only way our dad could get Jude and I back. Our dad knew that the courts wouldn't allow him to get custody, if they thought that we were better off with you guys. So, Chris thought it was a good idea, even thought it was a very dumb one," she glances at Chris and then back at her moms, "to scare you two into giving us back to foster care. When it became obvious to them that you two weren't going to get scared off so easily, he sent the picture to Lena, to split you two up."

Lena and Stef just stared at the two siblings with their jaws open. Both made several efforts to say something, but no words came out of their mouths. Chris coughed to clear his throat, "I'm really sorry for scaring your family. That wasn't my in— well, that was my intent but—" Callie put a hand on his knee and shook her head at him, so that he would stop talking.

"He wasn't really going to hurt anyone. He just didn't think his plan through all the way," she says. "This won't happen again," both women still stare at them, unable to express their thoughts with words.

"I'll pay for the damages to the window and some new tires," he offers. Stef plumps herself back down on the spot next to Lena.

Long pause.

Callie finally speaks, "And I don't know about Jude, but I want to see him…my father."

"I don't think that's a good idea," Stef says. Callie looks at her with confusion, and it was apparent to Lena that things were about to take a turn for the worse again.

"Not until we meet him first," Lena finishes.

* * *

**Yayyy. Finally done with this chapter. 9589549389839 years later. **

**I hate writing long chapters. Not only do they take forever to write, but they take forever to proofread :'(**

**Next chapter: Stef and Lena meet Callie and Jude's father. **

**Oh damn! Wonder how that will turn out…**


	34. Chapter 34

_Same Day (a few hours later)_

Stef and Lena are in their room, getting ready to go meet Callie and Jude's father.

"I still don't understand why you'd tell her we'd go see her father first. For gods sake Lena, he planned to scare us into giving up Callie and Jude," Stef complained.

Lena started throwing on some jewelry, "I don't want to do this either, Stef. But in all fairness, he wasn't exactly the one doing the planning. That was Chris's doing."

"Yeah, but he took part in it though. Come on, you saw him yourself back at the hotel in Arizona. He scared you to death. How could you just go volunteer to meet this sick—"

Lena interrupted her, "Would you have preferred Callie and Jude go alone? Would that have been a better choice?" Lena's frustration with her wife was coming out through her voice.

"I would have preferred that we forbid it. This could have been over if you would've let me finish talking."

"Why? Because forbidding things always works to our advantage? Callie would have gone anyway. And at least this way, we can examine the situation for ourselves, and then determine if—"

Stef interrupted this time, "If what? If they should forgive him? Move in with him? Why don't you just start packing their bags now?" Stef stared at her watch, "We could get them moved outta here by dinner time."

Lena was shaking her head and getting even more agitated with her wife, "No, Stef! That is not what I'm saying. I just think we need to see this from his perspective. He lost his wife, his children, spent ten years in jail—"

"For good reason," Stef interrupted.

Lena ignored her wife's comment, "Anddddd has spent the last year, trying to do better for himself so that he could get his kids back. Chris is obviously fond of him—"

"Chris is an idiot," Stef interrupted again.

Lena took a deep breath, "Maybe so. But that idiot is Callie and Jude's brother, and we can't ignore the fact that their father is back. If we don't try to at least meet him and give him the benefit of the doubt, Callie and Jude are never going to trust us again."

Stef sighed, realizing that her wife was making a lot of sense, "Fine. But can't we just say we met him, and then forbid it?" She smiled, silently hoping that her wife would agree, but knowing that it wasn't going to happen.

"Stef."

"Okay. Okay. We're doing this because it's for the best. I gotcha...Which reminds me."

"Yeah?"

"Guess who called me mom earlier?"

"No way," Lena said in disbelief.

"Well, more liked yelled it at me," Stef chuckled.

"When? Why?"

"I may have been inflicting pain on her brother, when I handcuffed him and threw him on the ground," Stef mentioned in an innocent voice.

"Stef," Lena said in a disproving voice, but she couldn't help but smile at the image. "Did she realize that she said it?" she asked out of curiosity.

"I have no idea."

* * *

Stef and Lena arrive at Donald's apartment and Stef starts knocking on the door, a little to hard.

"Stef!" Lena scolds.

"What?" Stef responds innocently. "Just making sure he's there. Don't wanna have to leave a mysterious note and throw a rock through his window," she jokes.

"I'm glad you can joke about, because I still can't."

A man's voice comes from right behind them, "Me neither." Both women are startled and jump slightly, by the sound of Chris's voice.

"Oh, hey, you made it," Lena says, attempting to give him a warm smile, even though she feels even more uncomfortable than before.

He pulls his keys from his pocket and shoves one into the doorknob, "Of course I made it. I had to be here in case your wife decides she wants to handcuff my dad and throw him onto the ground too," he smiles back.

Stef couldn't help but chuckle, "Yeah, well you have no idea how plausible that is, young man."

Chris opens the door and leads the two women inside.

Lena turns to her wife, "You said you'd be nice," she whispers.

"I never said that," she replied honestly.

"Have a seat," Chris offers the couch in the living room. Both women take a seat and glance at each other in confusion.

"So. Where's your dad?" Stef asks the question that they both wanted to.

"He's on his way. He got held back at work. But he should be here in a few minutes…Do you ladies want something to drink."

"Water would be nice," Lena said. Stef gave her a worried look, but Lena brushed it off.

"And you?" Chris looked at Stef.

"I'm good. Thanks," Stef smiled, just to be polite. She wasn't taking any chances, and she still didn't trust these people. She couldn't understand how her wife could be so forgiving.

Chris walked into the kitchen and came back with two waters. He placed both of them in front of the women, "Just in case."

"So," Stef started. Might as well not waste any time. "Do you live here too?"

"No. I live near Lakeside."

"Alone?"

"No. With my dog, Rusty."

"How nice," Lena spoke as she reached for her glass of water and took a small sip.

"How long have you been in contact with your dad?" Stef asked.

"Stef!" Lena scolded. She didn't think her wife would start interrogating the poor kid, the moment she stepped foot inside.

"No, it's okay," Chris tries to assure Lena. Even though he couldn't help but feel nervous around them. "A little less than a year, but I've known him since I was born."

"How interesting," Stef said, even though she wasn't interested at all. "And did you know about Callie and Jude? Are there any more of you that we should be worried about?"

"I remember them from a long time ago. My dad used to bring them by my mom's house, when they were really little. And there aren't any more that I know of," he offers a small laugh.

"And how come they don't remember?"

"Because he stopped bringing them over, as soon as Callie learned to talk. He didn't want their mom finding out about me."

"Who? Callie and Jude's mom? Why would he keep that a secret from her?" Stef knew that she was catching on to something, something that their dad probably wouldn't tell them about otherwise. She needed to get as much information out of this kid, while they were alone.

"Because he had an affair with my mom, while he was still married to theirs. And he didn't want to risk losing her. You know? By having her find out about it."

Stef turned to look at Lena, "And that's the kind of man you wanted to meet with? A man that couldn't even admit to his wife that he had another son?" Stef obviously wasn't taking the news too well.

* * *

Another man came up from behind the moms and started speaking, "I know I've made a lot of mistakes in my life, and I don't blame you two for hating my guts." Donald walked over and sat on the couch beside his eldest son, "But I'm trying to do right by all of them. I'm not the same man I was ten years ago. Hell, I wasn't even a man. I was a coward... But one thing's never changed; I've always loved my children, all three of them."

"Then, why did you wait so long to contact them? It's been over a year? And why is it that when you do contact them, it's by having your son sending us threatening notes?"

"I wanted to wait until I knew I had a stable job, and until I got an apartment big enough for them. I didn't want to jeopardize my chances of getting them back, until I knew that they wouldn't be taken away from me soon after… I didn't want to disappoint them a second time. And when I finally got that good job, and this apartment, I contacted social services, but they told me Callie and Jude were with you guys. I knew that my chances to get them back were slim to none. There's two of you and one of me. And I heard that you two already had positive experiences with your adoptive kids." Real tears were beginning to fill Donald's eyes and he tried to wipe them away, "I was desperate. I just wanted my family back, but I know that's not an excuse. I shouldn't have done what I did to yours, and for that I'm truly sorry. I just hope that Callie and Jude could forgive me one day, but if they don't I'll understand. They don't owe me anything and neither do you…"

* * *

**Phewww… Ending this chapter was sooooo freakin hard for me. But I left it as a blank.**

**Next Chapter= Last chapter**

**I'm finally completing this crap. Just kidding. It's not crap, I'm actually kind of proud of it, but I just wanna finish it soooo badly. **

**And I'll most likely upload it before this Monday's episode, since their father is going to be in that one, and I don't want it to interfere with whatever the heck I come up with. **


	35. Chapter 35

**O.M.G. I just realized it's late Sunday night. I thought it was Saturday and I was like "Damn! I said I would upload this chapter before Monday's episode!" **

**I completely forgot about it until now.**

**But this is the last chapter, and it might be longer than all of the rest were. Just because I still have a lot to go over :)**

**Anyways, back to the story:**

* * *

The moms are driving back home in their car, right after leaving Donald's apartment. Stef is driving and Lena is the passenger seat, gazing out of the window. She's silently going over the conversation they all had, back at his apartment.

"What do you wanna do, Lena?" Stef asked her. She was honestly confused about the entire situation. She wanted to hate their father. She wanted to show up to his house, and see right through his lies. She wanted him to show what a complete psycho he was, to threaten them like he had already done, to threaten to take his kids away from them, to cause a scene.

Anything than what just happened.

She hated believing his words. She hated him for being so sincere and apologetic. But on the other hand, she wasn't going to give Callie and Jude up without a fight. She already loved those kids so much and wasn't willing to just let them go back to their father.

"I don't know, honey. I'm just so confused. I don't know how to feel...Do you believe him?"

"Do you?" Stef asked, silently hoping that her wife would be nip it in the bud and disapprove of the man they just met.

"I…think I do. But that doesn't make this any easier for me, Stef. It's like, suddenly I'm so mad at myself for falling in love with those kids. I really thought they'd stay with us, that we'd adopt them. And now…"

"Hey! Don't talk like that. We're still going to adopt them," Stef stood in front of her wife and placed her palms on Lena's shoulders.

Lena looked up at her wife, trying to find that same strength in herself, but knowing she didn't own it. "That's their father, Stef. And he really wants them back. Everything he's done, since he's gotten out of prison, was for them. You heard him. He's gotten sober, a decent job, a huge apartment. He's already gotten one of his kids back."

"Let's not get ahead of ourselves. Callie and Jude haven't even seen him yet. They might not even want to go with him and—"

"What if they do though? What are we supposed to do?"

"Then we deal with it. Lena, you are the one who wanted to meet him. Remember?" Stef asked accusingly. She didn't want to direct her anger at her wife. She knew her wife was right about meeting him. If they didn't do it, Callie and Jude were going to see him, with or without their consent. But she didn't like the predicament that she and her wife were in now.

"That was before all of this happened. Before we understood what was really going on. This changes everything."

"So, what are you saying? We should just go home and tell Callie and Jude, "Hey it's perfectly okay if you go see your father," when we know what can happen if we do? I'm not comfortable with that."

"It's not up to us anymore. It's up to them," Lena finished.

* * *

_The next day_

Callie had just finished helping Jude with his homework, and Stef and Lena were in their bedroom, getting ready to take the two siblings to their Dad's apartment.

"Callie?" Jude asked, while he was shoving his math notebook back into his backpack.

"Yeah, bud?"

"What if we're not what he expected? What if he sees us and changes his mind?" Jude asked in a low voice that was depicting fear.

"He won't," Callie tried to assure him, but honestly she's wasn't too sure of that either. She's always considering the absolute worse possibility in every situation, and Jude learned that from her. But this time, for the first time, she regretted teaching him that.

"But what if he does? What if he asks us to leave? What if he thinks meeting us was a huge mistake?"

Callie thinks for a moment, pondering that exact same scenario, "Then, he does. He'll be making the second biggest mistake of his life, and we'll go on. We'll be okay. We still have Stef, Lena, Mariana, Brandon, and even Jesus. Right?" She smiles at him, letting him know that they'd get through this.

Jude smiles back at her, as he thinks about all of the people that love him now. He knew that whatever happened today, they'd still get through it. He and Callie weren't alone anymore.

* * *

As Callie, Jude and the moms walk toward Donald's apartment, Jude quickly whipped around to face the moms, "Are you sure this suit looks okay?" he asked them, as he adjusted his tie of his baby blue suit.

Callie thought he was trying to hard to impress him, but she didn't say anything about it. She looked down at her plain gray hoodie and jeans, and suddenly wished she'd borrowed some of Mariana's dresses. But she changed her mind, realizing how ridiculous the idea was. Her dad should accept them as is, not for what they think he wants them to be.

The moms both smiled at him, even though they knew that his nerves were getting them best of him. "You look very handsome," Lena offered.

Jude smiled back at them and grabbed Callie's hand. The siblings led the moms toward the door. "Are you ready?" Callie asked Jude.

"Are you?" Jude looked skeptical.

"Why not?" Callie asked as she knocked on the door firmly, so that Donald could hear, but not so hard that she would startle her brother. That would only add to his nerves.

Quickly after she'd knocked, Donald opened the door all the way. For a long moment, he just stared at his two kids in awe, not saying a word. Callie looked at him, trying to figure out what he was thinking, but having no such luck. Jude looked at Donald and then back at Callie. He was waiting for her reaction. He didn't want to say or do the wrong thing.

He'd wait for his sister to react first.

Callie broke the silence, "Are you going to let us in or just stare at us all day?"

She knew that she was being rude, but Jude's was tightening his grip around her hand, something he only did when he was afraid of what's to come. Her brother was scared now, and she didn't like it.

When Donald finally came out of his daze, he stepped backward so that he could let them all through, "…Yes, please come in." All four cautiously walk inside, Jude refusing to lessen his grip on Callie. Donald's eyes start to fill with tears, "You both are so beautiful. Callie, you look just like your mother." He smiles and tears fall from his eyes and make their way down to the sides of his mouth.

Callie stood there, staring back at him with her vision being blurred by the sudden tears that started to form in her eyes. She was speechless.

_I was the one that wanted to see him!_ She cursed herself.

One part of her wanted to have no emotions at all. She wanted to show up here, meet him, listen to whatever he had to say, and go back home with the Fosters: completely unscathed.

The other part, the one that she was giving into, was so glad that she was finally standing in front of her father.

She wanted him to heal every mental wound that she and her brother had to endure after he left, after he took their mother from him.

She wanted him to apologize, not in a letter, but to her face.

She wanted him to promise to never leave her and Jude alone ever again.

She wanted to believe he had, in fact, changed.

She did something she thought she'd never do again. She threw herself into his arms and allowed him to comfort her as she wept. He put his arms over his two children and hugged them tightly, afraid of being taken from them again. He kissed Callie on her forehead and then he kissed Jude on top of his head. Jude placed his arms around his father, suddenly realizing that it was ok to let his guard down.

_Callie had, so it must be ok_, he thought.

"Kids, I'm so sorry," were the only words he could mouth, because he couldn't stop from crying. All this time, he had been trying to write letter after letter, trying to find the right words to console his two children, and he realized something.

He realized the reason why he couldn't send out any of the 235 letters, that he had written them.

Words written on a piece of paper meant nothing, compared to this moment right now, that he was having with his children. The moment that they all desperately needed, since the second they lost both of their parents, ten years ago.

Stef and Lena exchanged looks. Sudden worry appeared on both of their faces, but also sadness. They had been moved by what they were seeing, but it still didn't make them feel any better.

They felt like they were playing a game of tug-of-war with their father.

They could feel the rope being pulled farther and farther away from them.

They could feel the burning sensation on their hands as the friction between the rope and their palms moved quickly.

Their father was pulling it harder and harder, until the two were barely holding on to the very end.

The aftermath would be the same though.

The losers would have to shake hands with opposing team and fake a smile.

* * *

Chris and Donald had prepared dinner for all six of them. After everyone had eaten, Donald asked to speak with his two children alone, leaving Chris to tend to the moms.

Callie, Jude, and their dad all walked outside onto the porch to talk. Callie and Jude sat closely on the small bench, and their dad stood leaning against the rail.

Donald spoke first, "You all have no idea how glad I am that you both came. You didn't have to."

"You're right. We didn't," Callie said in a firm voice, but then regretted it after seeing his hurt face. "But it was something we both needed to do."

"I understand. And I'm glad you came. No matter the reason."

"It wasn't right," she says, and her comment catches both Jude and their father off guard.

"What wasn't right?" he asks.

"What you did to our moms—foster moms, I mean. What you did to our—their entire family."

"I know it wasn't. I regret it from the bottom of my heart I do. I never meant to scare anyone, to scare your foster moms, your foster siblings, you, or Jude."

"Yes you did," Jude corrected him.

"You're right I did. But I only wanted to scare them into giving you two up. I wanted you back, which was so selfish of me. I see that now. But I do regret it. I didn't realize that I was hurting you by my decisions, and neither did Chris. I wanted you both safe and with me. And by doing what I did, I caused a lot of grief to you both. But I can't change what I've done, even though I wish I could. I'd take it back in a heartbeat. All of it: the drinking, the accident, the time I spend away from you because of those two things, the notes, the stalking. Everything."

"Did you apologize to Stef and Lena?" Jude asked with curiosity.

"Yes, I have actually. And I owe them 1000 more apologies, especially now that they've brought you both back to me. I want both of you here with me, forever. I want to be able to make it up to you, and I'll apologize all day, every single day, if I have to. I miss you two so much."

"We missed you to," Callie admits. Donald gives her a warm smile.

"Does that mean you're going to come home? Finally?"

* * *

The car ride back to the house was silent. Stef and Lena attempted to make small talk, asking about what the kids thought about their father.

"He said he was sorry," Jude answered them.

"That's good," Stef replied with a smile on her face.

"He asked us to go live with him. And Chris, too," Jude includes.

The smile quickly leaves Stef's face, but she doesn't turn around at all. Lena grips her wife's leg hard, as she waits for him to continue. He doesn't, which just adds to our discomfort.

"Really?" Stef asked, in an attempt to encourage the boy to continue. She was trying to hide her emotions, but her heart was throbbing in her chest so fast, that she'd thought someone could see it if they looked close enough.

"Yeah," Jude shrugged.

Stef looked in her review mirror at the two kids, "And. Um…what'd you two say?"

"We said we'd think about it."

As soon as those words escaped Jude's mouth, Stef hit the brake a little to hard, causing the car to shift back and forth.

Callie and Jude exchanged looks.

"Sorry," Stef offered. "That squirrel came out of nowhere. Did you guys see that?" she lies.

"Yeah, I saw it," Lena catches on. Callie and Jude glance at each other and nod.

Both knew very well, that there was no squirrel.

* * *

Everyone arrives home. Stef and Lena go into their bedroom and Callie and Jude go outside to the patio.

_In Stef and Lena's Bedroom_

As soon as Stef closes their bedroom door, she goes off, "This is what I didn't want to happen. He wasn't supposed to do this, Lena. How could he do this? We told him that the only way he could see them is if he didn't spring this on them." She started pacing the room, "What are we supposed to do? What do we tell them?"

Lena sat still on their bed with her arms crossed, "I don't know. I'm just as angry about this as you are. I don't want them to leave. We just got Callie back, and Jude has made so much progress this year. He's opening up to us and doing better in school. And he needs Callie with him."

"I know that, Lena. You know that she's going to go wherever he goes. She's not going to leave her brother, if she can help it. She's going to let him make the decision," Stef responds as she shakes her head.

"I want them to stay," Lena says as she allows a thousand tears to flow from her eyes down to her neck. She closes her eyes, in an attempt to pretend that this isn't really happening.

Stef kneels down on the floor next to the foot of the bed, where Lena's sitting. "I know babe. Please don't cry we're going to get through this. We have to."

Lena falls forward into Stef's embrace and allows the rest of her tears to fall down, onto the back of Stef's shirt.

* * *

_Outside in the patio_

"What are you thinking?" Callie asked, as she stared at Jude, who was staring down at the floor.

"Of Stef and Lena. Of Mariana and Jesus. Of dad and Chris."

"Yeah? So, what do you think about them?" she asks, as she takes a seat on the stairs next to her brother.

"I really like Chris. And I miss dad, even though he did a lot of bad things. I just…"

"Love him?"

"Yeah. I didn't want to," he tries to reason with me.

"I know, bud."

"Why couldn't he have come back before? Before we came here? Before we met the Fosters? Or the Olmsteads? Or the Wilsons? Why couldn't he come back before all the bad stuff?" Jude looks up at his sister.

"He was in jail," she reminded him.

"I know. But…he should have said something. He should have called us, so that we knew he cared. If we knew, then—"

"We wouldn't have gotten attached to these people," Callie finishes for him.

"Yeah. It just makes it so much harder, you know?"

"Do you want to go live with him?" she finally asks.

"Yeah," Jude admits. "But I love it here too."

"Me too," Callie says, as she brings him in closer for a hug.

* * *

_A couple days later_

Callie and Jude invite their dad and Chris over for dinner, to discuss their decision. The dinner was relatively quiet and awkward. The rest of the kids were out and dinner is now over.

"Alright," Callie starts. "There's no easy way to do this, so we might as well get this over with."

Stef sits up from her chair.

Lena puts the glass she was about to drink from, back onto the table.

Donald clears his throat.

And Chris leans in to listen better.

"Jude and I have thought a lot about this, over the past few days, and have come to a decision, that we both feel somewhat comfortable with."

Everyone is looking at the two kids, and they're all afraid to even blink they're eyes in anticipation that they'd miss something.

"We didn't want to hurt anyone's feelings, but we know that is inevitable." Callie turns to look at her father, "Dad, we love you, and we want to move in with you…but we also love it here, and we don't want to leave. We care about these people, and they care about us. What I'm trying to get at is, we think we need to stay here."

Stef and Lena grab hold of each other's hands from underneath the table, and do their best to refrain from smiling. They were so glad that Callie and Jude chose to stay with them, but they knew that the Jacob men were hurting.

Donald nodded, "I understand. I just want you two to be happy, and if you need to stay here to make that happen, then you should stay," he finishes.

Callie and Jude smile at him. Jude talks, "But we still want you in our lives. You know, if you still want to be?"

"Of course, I want to be. It's all I ever really wanted."

**The End.**

**Yayyyyyy! I'm so excited that I've actually completed one of my stories. **

**I never finish anything, so that's pretty awesome :)**

**But I can't take all the credit, because your reviews actually reminded me, that I couldn't NOT finish it, because I would have left all of you guys hanging. **

**I didn't want to do that, even though I was getting super lazy after the first 15 chapters, but you guys pulled me through, lol.**

**So thank you, to all of you who've actually bothered to read 35 freakin' chapters. Idk how you did it, but you did. And thanks to all who followed and favorited this story. **

**You all are awesome!**

**XOXO**

**Boredouttamymind21 (I need a new pen-name, lol)**


End file.
